


Falcon Protocol

by Accal1a



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst and Humor, BAMF Stiles, Blood and Injury, Blood and Torture, Gen, Hostage Situations, I Blame Tumblr, I love angst, Kidnapped Stiles, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2018-06-02 01:04:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 24,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6544171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accal1a/pseuds/Accal1a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is taking organs from people in Beacon Hills and The Pack investigate; but they've poked their nose into someone else's business...and that's not a good thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ideas bounced off the fantastic [Hurt-Stiles](http://hurt-stiles.tumblr.com); during a squee-filled 3.5 hours. Betaed by the incomparable [inderlander](http://inderlander.tumblr.com).
> 
>  
> 
> Here we go!

“They’ve finished the autopsy,” Stiles said, looking up from his phone which had pinged mere seconds earlier.

Stiles’ voice was despondent, his demeanour showing just how tired and depressed he was about the state of affairs. The latest ‘case’ they were puzzling over made absolutely no sense and the strain was starting to show on all of the pack. No-one wanted to admit that they had no idea what they’d stumbled upon.

“Oh God, what is it this time?” Lydia replied, looking resigned to more bad news. She’d felt the death, which had led them to the body; but it wasn’t until the medical examiner had finished that they were able to ascertain the extent of the damage. “Liver.” Stiles said matter-of-factly, sitting down on the beige corner sofa taking up much of the room, locking his phone as he did so. Lydia followed suit, almost looking like she had folded. Stiles reached for her hand, patting it and offering a wan smile. 

It had been an unspoken decision to all meet at Lydia’s, they knew she was feeling these deaths more keenly than others before and wanted to support her as best they could.

“I don’t get it,” Scott piped up. “There isn’t a pattern. The lore makes no sense. What the hell is this thing?” 

Scott threw the book to the floor and followed it down moments later, sinking into the plush carpet of Lydia’s living room.

The three of them sat in silence for a long time, just staring at nothing.

“Maybe we could check the preserve again,” Scott offered weakly.

“Yeah, that’s where most of the bodies have been found,” Lydia agreed, knowing they’d had this conversation before but not wanting to lose hope.

“Great. So, tonight then?” Stiles asked.

“Yeah,” Scott replied. “I’ll call the others.”

The three of them lapsed into a despondent silence again; and it was some time before Scott got up the energy to do just that.

~~~

“Only two more ingredients to go.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“No, I was careful.”

“Because we’re really close to finishing this.”

“I know.”

“Right. No mistakes. We go after the plant tonight. Get some shut eye.”

“Sir.”

~~~ 

The preserve was still in the night , as if it knew that something was about to change. There was only the sound of the wind rustling through the trees and the sound of movement through the undergrowth; no animal sounds.

After some time, Malia spoke up. “Just what are we looking for, exactly?”

“Anything, any clue … just … look, just _anything_ that would help us to understand what we’re facing here,” Scott said. He still sounded despondent, but there was an infuriating undercurrent of hope to his tone, too.

“Maybe it really _is_ just a serial killer?” Kira had voiced the same opinion before; but it had been discounted in the many and varied discussions they’d had about the problem at hand.

“Since when has it _ever_ been a serial killer in Beacon Hills?" Stiles interjected, cutting off whatever Scott was going to say instead. "No, it’s too precise to be random; just single organs taken from the bodies and not the same organs either. I’ve not heard of any serial killer who did that, although there _was_ one, once, who…”

“Shush, I think I heard something.” Lydia whispered, gesturing with one arm for quiet . 

They all stopped walking, straining their eyes and ears in the darkness. The supernatural teens scanned the woods with their heightened senses, but picked up on nothing out of the ordinary. Malia and Kira had better night vision than the humans, and Scott had true night vision, but even he couldn’t see anything other than the darkened shapes of the trees, which seemed to stretch on and on into infinity.

After several agonising minutes, they started to move again, fanning out slightly but still keeping in a rough formation. 

The silence was broken by the sound of a dull thud and Stiles swearing loudly. Scott was by his side seconds later appraising him for injuries and checking to be sure he wasn’t seriously hurt.

“I’m fine, guys. I just tripped over something,” Stiles assured, sitting up from where he'd face-planted in the earth with a rueful expression . A ribbon of pain shot up his leg and he winced, drawing in a breath. 

“Stiles, you’re bleeding,” Scott pointed out, looking at the dark patch spreading on the leg of Stiles' khakis and sounding worried.

“Guys, I’m _fine_. Really. It doesn’t even hurt that much.” Stiles clutched his shin tightly just below the knee and above the cut, waiting for the stinging to die down. It did hurt but he rarely told the truth about how he was feeling; and he wasn’t going to start now .

Lydia’s flashlight cut a path across the ground, looking to see what it was that Stiles had tripped over. She saw a reflection and quickly moved the beam back again. The light played along what looked like some ancient, rusting bit of farm equipment that had been abandoned out here long ago. Whatever it had once been, it had sunk partially into the earth, but a good twelve or thirteen inches of it remained, sticking out above ground. It looked alien surrounded by all of the greenery, a forgotten relic of a time when Beacon Hills was inhabited by fewer people. She idly wondered whether the Hale’s once tilled this land before turning it into a preserve in which they could hunt . “I found it, it’s here." Lydia frowned at the rusted, dirt-crusted metal, looking between it and the tear in Stiles' pants where it had caught him when he fell over it. "That doesn't look good. We should get you back to civilization, Stiles.”

“Guys, seriously, you’re making a fuss about nothing,” Stiles protested, pushing back up to his feet. The cut throbbed a little, but it really wasn't very deep or very serious. It was more of an abrasion than anything else . He winced when he put his full weight on his injured leg but it held, supporting him and making him even more frustrated about all the fuss.

Scott’s mind was going into overdrive as to how they could get Stiles back quickly. What would be the most efficient route? Should he send someone ahead to alert someone? Should he call his Mum? Was he supposed to apply a tourniquet or would that make it worse? Why the hell didn’t they carry a first aid kit around with them?

“SCOTT!” 

“What?”

“Scott, stop. I’m fine.” 

Scott peered at Stiles, wondering whether he’d been saying any of that out loud. At Scott’s quizzical expression, Stiles continued. “You think I can’t tell when those cogs are turning?”

“Maybe so, but we should still get that seen to, Stiles,” Lydia said, pragmatic as ever. “When was the last time you got a Tetanus shot? Do you think your Dad would have your inoculation records?”

Stiles threw up his hands and shrugged, deciding to just give in to the overreactions that were spouting up all around him. It was easier that way.

~~~

After the sounds of crashing through the undergrowth diminished, three shadowy figures bedecked in camo-gear rose from a point mere feet away from where the teenagers had stopped.

Returning to base, they spoke with their immediate superior about what they’d seen. They had to do some rapid explaining about why they were back so late; and why they had failed in their mission. The plant had to be harvested at a specific time; and due to their interruption, they’d missed the window.

“It was those damn kids again.” The first of the men spoke up. He spoke with a slight lisp; but was the larger of the trio, so no-one ever called him on it. “They’ve been putting their nose where it’s not wanted for weeks now. We need to send them a message, Sir. Show them they’ve messed with the wrong people.”

“Any weak spots?”

“They’ve got a human with them.”

“Get on it.”

“Yes, Sir.”

~~~ 

Melissa was off shift, so when the pack descended on the McCall household en masse, she was there to administer First Aid and advice. No, Stiles didn’t need to go to the hospital. Yes, she was sure. No, he wasn’t likely to get a serious infection from a cut of that size if it was properly tended. Yes, she’d see to that tending and bandage him up. No, he didn’t need stitches. Yes, he could walk. No, they didn’t have to call the Sheriff. Yes, he could go home on his own. 

Stiles sat as still as he could through all of it. He let the conversation wash over him and only answered medical questions from his second mother. He was under the impression that everyone had grossly overreacted and was itching to get back out into the preserve to find out what was going on with the bodies. 

Whilst Melissa did let him go home, she put an embargo on him going back out into the preserve, at least until the following night; and only if the cut didn’t get worse. She knew that telling Stiles he shouldn’t go out with the others was useless, whatever she said he would ignore. He wasn’t one to let his friends walk into danger if he wasn’t right alongside them .

Stiles therefore reluctantly left, forcefully informing everyone that he _was_ going to go out with them again tomorrow, and that _no_ it wasn’t up for negotiation. 

The house was dark when he arrived, which he was thankful for. The last thing he needed was his father being worried about an inconsequential injury. It didn’t matter how many times he’d hurt himself; and he was a clumsy child, so it was often, his dad always went overboard. Stiles knew it was because they were the only family they had left and that they looked after each other, knew that he’d do exactly the same if it were the other way round; but it was still overbearing sometimes.

Throwing his keys down on the table by the door, he gingerly climbed the stairs, hoping to pop some Tylenol from the medicine cabinet above the main bathroom sink and fall into bed. Whilst he didn’t like the fuss that was made of him, his leg _did_ sting and he was looking forward to resting it; even if he wouldn’t have told Scott that for all the tea in China .

As he walked into his room, he heard a breath before he turned the light on.

“Malia, I said I was fi…” He started, flipping the switch as he did so.

Malia was not in his room .

Occupying a not unsubstantial portion of his bedroom were two guys who wouldn’t have looked out of place in an action film. They were the sort of wiry men which screamed ‘mercenary’ and he felt his body instantly flood with adrenaline. He found it pretty laughable, because it seemed highly likely that it would be his hand which managed to hurt itself against their chests rather than the other way round should he try to punch one of them; but his body seemed happy to ignore that practical advice.

He turned around to attempt to flee and was stopped by a third man who had apparently crept up behind him silently. So, not only mercenaries, but mercenary ninjas. Great. He had the distinct urge to giggle but thought that would probably not have gone down too well.

“Evening, gentlemen. What can I do for you?” 

Stiles sounded far braver than he felt; but he wasn’t entirely sure what the etiquette was for three Rambo-types suddenly appearing in your bedroom.

That was clearly the wrong tack, because the guy behind him suddenly swallowed him up with his arms, almost picking him up off the floor and moving him into his room. Stiles’ arms were pinned to his sides and he worried that he was being kidnapped, before noting that if that was happening they’d likely be taking him _out_ of his bedroom, not further into it . 

The man kicked the door shut with his foot, lending a bang and a finality to the situation which flooded Stiles with fear, choking off the adrenaline.

Stiles was placed unceremoniously on his bed, bouncing slightly as he was thrown down. He sat up, his feet firmly on the floor and waited. Clearly, they were here for a reason and the sooner he found out what that reason was, the sooner he’d be able to come up with a plan to get out of it .

One man stood in front of the window, the other in front of Stiles' now closed bedroom door and the third loomed over him. They were clearly professionals, blocking all of the escape routes; but professional _what_ Stiles couldn’t ascertain.

“We notice you’ve been spending quite a lot of time in the Preserve recently,” Goon #1 said.

Stiles shrugged. “And?”

The man immediately bristled, fisting his hand in the front of Stiles’ T-shirt.

“And, we’re here to _politely_ ask you to stop.”

“ _This_ is polite?” Stiles knew that his sarcasm was often a defence mechanism; but really wished it would rein itself in sometimes.

“Trust me, Kid. You wouldn’t want us to ask you impolitely.”

“Oh come on. You’re using ‘you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry’? Seriously?”

The punch came out of nowhere.

The guy’s left hand was still fisted in Stiles’ T-shirt and the other hand abruptly impacted his cheek with jarring force. He briefly wondered how the man had managed to move so fast. It felt like his brain rattled in his head when the fist connected. He was fairly sure he saw stars before his vision cleared again.

“Now, let’s try that again, shall we?”

Stiles nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He knew he would only earn himself another punch if he allowed his defence mechanism any further free rein.

“Tell your friends to stay out of the preserve. We don’t want to hurt you; but we will if you get in our way again.”

A light flared on the other side of the room and Stiles blinked rapidly to clear his vision.

“What’s this?” one of the men demanded, studying Stiles' case board.

“It’s a dry-wipe board,” Stiles stated the obvious.

The fist tightened on his T-shirt and Stiles shut his mouth, not trusting himself to say any more. He wasn’t hurt again; but the tightening of the grip very clearly showed an intent to do so should he misbehave further.

The goon covering the window, who, it turned out, was the one who had turned on the light, seemed to be peering at the board intently.

“You need to see this,” he said over his shoulder to the man currently threatening Stiles.

“You. Stay.” He barked at Stiles, shoving him backwards onto the mattress as he let go of his T-shirt. 

Stiles decided to stay lying down, leaning on his elbows and apprising the three of them from the new angle afforded to him. Having the window free was useful only if he wanted to plummet to the ground without a safety net, there were no handy half-roofs like at Scott’s house that could break your fall and allow a shorter height to jump off. He didn’t want to think what would happen if he hurt his ankle, couldn’t run, and then these guys caught up with him.

The man by the door to the hall stayed where he was. He looked like he was standing in a state of relaxed readiness, like a coiled snake. Military, Stiles thought. That lent further weight to the idea of them being mercenaries; but he couldn’t work out why mercenaries would have teamed up with a supernatural creature to help them get body parts. It made absolutely no sense. He was missing something and it infuriated him. This was his skill; this was what made him useful to the pack, and he was failing at his ‘job’.

The men spent several minutes looking over everything on Stiles’ board. It showed links to everything they’d found out about the odd occurrences going on in Beacon Hills. Every corpse and the location that it had been found in and every organ that had been harvested were recorded in his sprawling handwriting. It showed a list of potential supernatural creatures; but many of them had been crossed out. Down the right hand side, there was a list of numbers marking pages in the Bestiary that he thought might be of use. To Stiles, it seemed to show a big pile of nothing, but the mercenaries seemed to find it fascinating.

The man who had been threatening Stiles moved back towards him. Stiles flinched and he saw a dangerous glint in the other man’s eye.

“Stay out of the preserve and you won’t come to any nasty accidents, alright? Your friends might have the capacity to heal,” He leaned closer, “but you’re a little more breakable aren’t you?” He patted Stiles on his newly bruised cheek, making it sting. 

Stiles didn’t say anything; but the man seemed to be expecting an answer, so when he bore down on him again, Stiles responded in the affirmative.

The men left in silence, filing out of his room and down the stairs. He heard the front door open and close and then silence.

Once Stiles was sure he could stand without his legs going to jelly under himself, he did so. His leg seemed to be throbbing more and he belatedly realised it was because his heart rate had sped up in response to the threat. He was surprised to find out he wasn’t on the verge of a panic attack though, apparently a threat from a human mercenary didn’t warrant any panic, which was good to know. 

He walked towards his murder-board, staring at it anew. He tried to look at it as someone looking at it for the first time. He wondered what it was that the men had seen which made them pause. Nothing they were looking at seemed to surprise them, past the first initial shock of seeing the writing there in the first place. Stiles reached for his chinograph pencil and wrote _‘Mercenaries?’_ in a space in the top right corner. There was clearly something going on in the preserve that needed dealing with. This encounter, far from making him want to stop, made him want to work out what was going on even more. If it was important enough to be threatened over, then it was important enough for them to work out what it was .

He decided immediately not to tell Scott what had occurred. He didn’t need his friend worrying about him any more than he already did. If he flipped out over a small cut, he was going to totally lose it over a threat to Stiles’ life. Stiles remembered the weeks following his and Lydia’s kidnapping in Eichen House: Scott followed him around almost constantly, often slept over at his house; rang him nearly every hour; walked him to his classes; and ‘accidentally’ ran into him when Stiles was doing errands in town. It was only when Stiles finally told him to stop, using Malia as an excuse (and he wasn’t proud of that), that he finally got some peace. He knew that if Scott was aware of what had happened this evening he would shut down any further involvement Stiles could have in the case; and Stiles wasn’t having that. He didn’t need to be surrounded by supernatural bubblewrap, he could be a valued member of this pack; but only if he could work with autonomy. Added to which, he thought not telling them kept them all safer. If the threat was only against him, he could protect them far better working out the puzzle as quickly as possible than he could worrying them unnecessarily and pulling focus from the case. 

He couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else being hurt because of him; that part of his life was over and he had vowed that it was never going to happen again. Every time he thought about putting Scott in danger he heard the squelch of the sword going into his best friends’ gut and his resolve hardened. Stiles knew he could weather this storm on his own. He wasn’t the weakling that his friends thought he was. This time, he’d be the first line of defence; and he’d do it well.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the fantastic [inderlander](http://inderlander.tumblr.com); and expertly cheerleaded by [hurt-stiles](http://hurt-stiles.tumblr.com).
> 
> Fight sequence in this chapter re-wrote by [inderlander](http://inderlander.tumblr.com) because I panicked.

“STlLES!”

Stiles turned, nearly losing his footing as he did so. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d fallen over from spinning round too quickly and he was sure it wouldn’t be his last. Scott’s next words showed he must have looked confused when he had turned, too.

“I’ve been calling you for ages. What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing…er, well nothing new. I’m just going over everything again. I must have blocked everything out, you know I do that.” 

“Okay, well hey, your leg seems better; you were walking really quickly. Wait, what’s wrong with your face?”

 _Some mercenaries broke into my house and threatened my life because we were actually pretty close to working out what was going on._ “Nothing.”

“Stiles.”

 _I actually snarked back at one of them because, you know me, that’s what I do; and they gave me a taster._ “Honestly? I have no idea, just woke up and it was like that.” _Wow._ “Must have clocked myself really hard in the night.” _Seriously? How did he manage to lie to his Dad for so many years?_

“Oh, well, I’m glad you’re okay.”

Stiles had no idea how that had actually worked, but he was glad that it had. Scott must be pretty distracted for him to buy that flimsy excuse.

“We’re going to meet up at Lydia’s again tonight, if you’re up to it?” Scott appraised Stiles head to toe, focusing on his leg.

“Scott, geez! You're being more annoying than when I had my appendix out.”

“Appendices can kill you!”

Stiles dropped his voice lower, checking if there was anyone near them. “Yeah and so can werewolf bites. I’m _fine_ , Scott.”

Scott gave him one last look over and then walked towards their first class, the bell ringing as they crossed the threshold.

~~~

“We’re going to go out to the preserve again tonight when the boys get here.”

“What’s the point?” Malia asked, direct as ever.

“We need to find out what’s go…”

“Yeah, fine. So who’s dead now?” Malia questioned Lydia, cutting her off mid-flow.

Lydia opened her mouth to reply but was saved from attempting a response by the front door bell ringing. She walked over to the door, pasting a smile on her face as she swung it open.

When she saw who was at the door, she toned down her ‘polite to strangers’ persona. She lost a bit of her smile and her shoulders sagged slightly.

Once Lydia had swung open the door, Scott and Stiles walked in together. They left their shoes at the door, as per Lydia’s instructions and padded into the living room. Stiles actually really loved the fact that you couldn’t wear shoes in the Martin Household, the carpet was so fluffy that you felt like you were walking on marshmallows. He wished for a moment that he could be a normal teenager, going round a friend’s house, laughing at the way the carpet felt under your toes, curling your feet around the soft surface and sitting on the floor more often than not because it was so comfy; except he wasn’t a normal teenager, so he didn’t even mention the carpet .

“What time are we leaving?” Stiles asked, pretty sure he knew the answer anyway.

“As soon as it gets dark.” Scott said, confirming Stiles’ thought.

~~~

Stiles' fingers played against the handle of the baseball bat he was carrying as the trekked through the darkened woods. After his encounter yesterday, he thought it prudent to bring a weapon. 

The preserve looked much the same as it had the previous night, and like the previous night, there was a lot of walking and looking without anything happening. Rusted metal aside, the woods didn’t seem to pose much threat, lulling them slowly into a less watchful state. Even Stiles started to relax a little.

Then, Malia growled at the sound of a twig snapping on her right, and all hell broke loose.

A man loomed out of the darkness and she pounced immediately, seeing him for the threat that he was. As she was leaping, the man brought up a shock baton and managed to electrocute her in the air, causing her to crash to the ground.

Kira drew her sword, but couldn’t see anything to attack. She moved towards Malia’s body, relieved to see that her friend was breathing.

“I think she’s oka…”

Kira’s statement turned into a shriek at the end and Scott, Lydia and Stiles all turned towards her, before Scott fully brought his wolf to the surface, scanning the area with his night vision.

He saw three men, all of them wearing night vision goggles, which would explain their precision in taking down first Malia and now Kira. In addition to the stun batons, they were also sporting handguns. 

"Who are you?" Scott demanded, taking a protective step towards his fallen friends. "What are you doing?" 

"Protecting ourselves from a pack of wild animals, apparently, werewolf," one of the men shot back, showing that he knew what they were. He perhaps intentionally did not answer the first question. "What are _you_ doing here. You hunting us?" 

Scott's brows furrowed and he shook his head. "What? No. Look, I think this is a misunderstanding, we don't want to hurt you,” he tried.

“Put those claws away and we might believe you, Alpha.” 

The man’s voice was firm and commanding. He spoke with no discernible accent and he managed to make ‘Alpha’ sound like an insult.

“No, really, we’re not. Look…you’re humans, hunters, right?" he glanced towards the stun batons. "We’re just, we’re out here looking for a monster, we're not hurting anybody and we’ve got no problem with you.”

There was a sharp bark of laughter from the man to Scott’s left. “An Alpha _and_ a Diplomat, quite the renaissance man.”

“Scott…” Stiles started, pitching his voice low.

“And you surround yourselves with humans. What? Does that make you feel like a big, strong, wolf?”

“Nah, we just love the sycophant lifestyle, don’t we Lyds?” Stiles said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

Lydia felt like she was cloaked in a shroud of death. She didn’t want to move one iota, events were on such a knife edge that she was concerned one wrong step could cause catastrophe; and she’d buried enough friends.

“Stiles…” she said through gritted teeth. “…not the time.”

“Look, really, we don’t want any trouble. You go your way and we’ll go ours.”

Stiles was starting to regret not telling Scott about the mercenaries. These people clearly _were_ what they were searching for, or were at least involved in some way and Scott was just going to let them go. If he tried to communicate that idea to Scott right now, however, he was likely to set off a confrontation for which they might not be prepared. Lydia's warning tone earlier had him on edge.

Scott lowered his hands. The mercenaries started to walk away, and that may have been that, but then Malia woke up. 

Clearly still disorientated, she woke up swinging. She shot to her feet with a snarl, instinct driving her to get out of the defenceless position as quickly as possible and find the source of the threat. She didn't attack, but the sudden, aggressive motion startled the men. One of them reacted, swinging at her with his baton again, but Malia was not about to be caught the same way twice. She ducked under the blow and grabbed the man's wrist, twisting it sharply and making him let go. 

One of the other men brought his gun up and squeezed the trigger, intending to shoot her at point blank range, but Scott lunged him before he could, knocking the gun aside and making the shot go wild. In an instant, the tension in the air fractured into violent chaos. 

Scott grappled with the man he'd tackled, struggling to disarm him without using his claws or teeth. He was still trying to say they didn't want to fight, but nobody was listening. Perhaps they thought he was trying to double-cross them. Scott didn’t often bemoan his new status as a werewolf these days; but it was situations like this which made him long for a more trustworthy face.

Stiles saw the third man draw his weapon and aim it at Scott's back. It was difficult to make out faces around the night vision goggles the men wore, but Stiles was reasonably certain it was the same man who had punched him yesterday, and he took an inordinate amount of satisfaction in swinging his bat into the man's chest as hard as he could, knocking the guy sprawling. Either the man was wearing body armour, or he had some kind of pain tolerance because he recovered quickly from the blow. Stiles enjoyed his triumph for all of five or ten seconds before the man kicked his feet out from under him with a vicious swipe of his legs. 

Stiles landed hard on his back, the bat rolling away from him. He scrambled quickly to his hands and knees, reaching for it, when someone kicked him in the side of the head. In the darkness and confusion, he couldn't tell if it was the same man as before or one of his companions. The kick had been ill-aimed and was more of a glancing strike, but it still sent flashes exploding across his vision. As he reeled, a second kick caught him in the gut with much more force and accuracy. The blow sent pain searing through across his ribs and knocked him sideways. As he toppled his fingers closed on the bat handle. He swung blindly, connecting with something solid, probably the man's shin. He was rewarded with a sharp yelp of pain. 

Clutching the bat and rolling away, Stiles staggered quickly back to his feet, clutching his side with his free hand and breathing hard. Lacking either night vision goggles or the ability to see in the dark, most of what was happening around him right now was a shadowed blur of motion as he tried to blink away the lights still popping in his vision. Holding the bat in a death grip, he staggered unsteadily, trying to find his balance and orientate himself around the ringing in his head. 

Lydia caught hold of his shoulder, steadying him, and he leaned gratefully into the grounding touch for a moment as his vision cleared. 

About then Kira woke up. Clearly groggy and confused, she scrambled to her feet just in time to run into one of the men as he attempted to break away from the scuffle. He punched her hard in the face, knocking her backwards. 

Seeing the action in his periphery, Scott growled, but the sharp retort of a gun splitting the night air and the bite of pain from a bullet passing through his shoulder forced him to focus back on the man in front of him. 

The man who had punched Kira hesitated for a moment, looking back towards his fighting companions. If he acted quickly, he had a free shot at getting out of here, but wasn’t sure whether he should. The mission was important, but you never left a man behind.

His indecision must have been obvious, because he was suddenly being shouted at “Morgan! Take it, we’ll hold them off.” There was a pause. “That was an order. This is mission critical. Get out of here!”

He didn’t need to be told a third time.

~~~

Morgan paced back and forth in the rented warehouse they had kitted out as home base. A small, deceptively ordinary looking plant sat discarded on the work surface next to him. Whilst the ingredient had to be harvested at a specific time, it then didn’t need any special treatment until it was ingested before the rite. This magic shit was really starting to get on his nerves.

A scuffle near the door had him alert and raising his weapon in seconds, moving towards the noise. A body appeared in the doorway, only narrowly missing falling by grabbing onto the doorjamb on the way in.

“Carter?”

“No, it’s the tooth fairy. Give me a hand you idiot .”

The new guy was wavering on his feet and Morgan quickly slung his colleague’s arm round his own shoulders and supported his weight. He lowered him gently onto a chair. Pulling Carter’s pack off, he dug around for the field first aid kit they all carried. 

“Where’s the worst?”

“Right leg, I swear to God if that wolf bit me, I’ll hunt it down and force-feed it Wolfsbane until it’s grandpups are dead.” 

Carter winced when Morgan lifted his trouser leg away and peered at the damage to the calf.

“Deep lacerations, going to need to stitch them. No bite though. Looks like you still won’t be able to beat me at Basketball.”

Carter inhaled sharply when the disinfectant hit, but didn’t make a sound. You couldn’t be in this line of work without there being some pain along the way. If all went well, pedestrian things like pain would be a thing of the past soon. At least that was what he’d been told about the rite. He’d come up swinging if all of this had been for naught. He didn’t like being made a fool of. 

The door banged open. Carter, still clutching his gun in his grip, raised it automatically towards the sound. Morgan would never have told him this but Carter half-dead was still the best shot out of all of them.

“Where’s the plant?”

“Hello to you too, Sir.”

“Sorry, Carter, of course. How are you today, would you like a foot rub?”

“Wouldn’t go amiss, Sir,” Carter said with a grin.

“We’ve got it, it’s on the table.” Morgan responded to the initial question, gesturing with his hand in that general direction. He then set to digging about in Carter’s leg to make sure he got all of the detritus out.

“Stop the foreplay, Morgan, and just get the fuck on with it,” Carter said through gritted teeth.

Morgan, after giving the wound one last look over, threaded a needle and set to work in stitching up his colleague’s leg.

“Wait, where’s Austin?”

The fourth man walked in the door as if summoned. “Right here, you tit. What? You thought a group of teenagers were going to take me down?”

“Shut up, all of you! Geez, you’re worse than my mum on a margherita.”

That was the wrong choice of phrase and the boss knew it before he’d even finished the sentence.

“Long day, Sir?”

He waved them off, he was too tired to think about the ribbing he’d incur later. He was bone weary of the whole operation now and just wanted it to go right for once in their lives.

“I don’t think he told them,” he said finally.

“What do you mean?” Austin replied. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box but even Carter and Morgan wanted to know the answer, so they didn’t take the piss like they normally did whenever their colleague spoke.

“Well you saw the wolf, he had no idea why we were there. He thought we were just crossing paths monster hunting. No, I don’t think the human talked.”

“Well that’s just _great_ isn’t it, what’s the point in wasting a perfectly good threat when the person you threaten isn’t even goi…”

“Shut up! No, we’re just going to have to be more persuasive. He doesn’t want to tell his friends? We’ll force them to pay attention by sending them a message ourselves.” 

“Sir?”

“Get some sleep. 0900, take your kit, we’re enacting Falcon Protocol.”

All traces of scepticism disappeared from Morgan’s face and he smiled. He’d always _loved_ Falcon Protocol.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's all [inderlander](http://inderlander.tumblr.com) and [hurt-stiles](http://hurt-stiles.tumblr.com)'s fault.

Stiles woke to the sound of the front door closing. His head and his side ached dully from the altercation last night and _awake_ was not really a desirable condition. 

He'd tried to school his father into remembering that _some_ people might be sleeping when _some_ people left for work; and that _those_ people may appreciate it if _that_ person closed the door quietly; but it didn't seem to stick.

The snuggly nature of his duvet meant that he was soon drawn back into the embrace of sleep anyway, so he couldn't really be mad at his dad. Not that Stiles wouldn't remind him of it later though. He had to keep up _some_ appearances.

The next time he woke, something was wrong.

Stiles opened his eyes but stayed stock still in bed. He held the duvet away from his head in a probably pointless, and no doubt idiotic and cartoonish, effort to hear more clearly. He didn't know what had woken him, but all of his senses were on alert. The last few years in Beacon Hills had shown him he should trust his gut when it was telling him to run, and that was all it was saying now. 

Straining his ears for any extraneous sound, he carefully lifted the cover off himself and sat up, putting his feet on the floor as he did so.

Something grabbed both of his ankles and he barely restrained the shriek wanting to form. Every nightmare that he had ever had about a monster living under his bed seemed to crowd into his mind all at once. Now that he knew there really _were_ things that went ‘bump’ in the night, adrenaline coursed through him. 

Some part of Stiles was actually relieved when one of the mercenaries walked into his room, making a beeline for the dry-wipe board, before he could decide what he was going to do about the bed monster. He caught himself thinking that at least he wasn’t going to be eaten in his own room; but then the realisation dawned that this was still a threat. He swallowed, trying to still the pounding in his head, which was not being helped by his increased heart rate. 

“I think we can let Mr. Stilinski go, can’t we?” The man said to the room.

The hands holding Stiles’ ankles were removed and he immediately stood up, stepping away from his bed as he did so. He glanced down after a moment and saw a man snaking himself out from under his bed and he barely repressed a shudder.

“Er, so happy creepy morning to you too, Mr…” Stiles left the sentence hanging but the other man did not fill in his name. Stiles would have been surprised if he had.

He made a bolt for the door; but didn’t get three steps before a third man appeared from his closet and blocked his escape route. These guys were good.

“See, we’ve got a bit of a problem, Mr. Stilinski,” the main guy said. Stiles got the impression that he was the boss. It would certainly make sense, considering he hadn’t been there for the last ‘friendly chat’. He wasn’t sure what it meant for him exactly, but it was never good in movies when the boss decided that their subordinates weren’t doing the job properly and had to up the ante and do it themselves.

The fact they already knew his name spoke volumes to how organised this unit was. That didn’t fill Stiles with much hope, although he caught himself being mildly impressed, which annoyed him.

“There are these _kids_ messing around in things they don’t understand; and our…organisation would like them to stop.” The man continued speaking, unaware of Stiles’ thoughts.

“And how is that my problem?” Stiles asked, instantly mentally kicking himself for the tone he knew the question conveyed.

Closet Guy grabbed him by the upper arm and dragged him the three feet across his room towards Boss Man. Somehow the fact that this was happening in his bedroom made him angry. How dare they invade his personal space and then have the audacity to move him round his room like he was a piece of furniture? He dug his feet into the carpet and was frustrated by the absolute lack of difference it made.

They stopped in front of Boss Man, his upper arm still firmly held by Closet Guy. When Bed Monster joined them, he took up position on the other side of Stiles and mirrored the position of his colleague.

Stiles realised that he didn’t recognise any of them as the guy that had punched him before and that small victory made him feel slightly better. Except, not _really_ because he was in a serious amount of trouble and unless Scott decided to randomly pop round (which wasn’t unheard of) he couldn’t see a way out of his current predicament without some hurt. He harboured no illusions about where this was going. They were going to threaten him again, except this time, perhaps they’d do more than just punch him in the face.

“It’s your _problem_ , Mr. Stilinski, because I think you hold a lot of sway with your compatriots and you could make these problems disappear for us.” He tapped the circled ‘Mercenaries?’ which Stiles had written up only a few days before.

“And why should I do that?”

“Because,” a new voice said, getting progressively louder as the speaker entered the room, “we already asked nicely once and we don’t like asking twice.”

Stiles laugh was cut off by the pain of having his hair pulled such that his head was tilted back. The new voice whispered directly into his ear. “Find that funny, do you?”

“I think we need to reassess your definition of the word ‘nice’.” Stiles snarked, refusing to be cowed.

His hair was released and he stupidly thought that that was that, until the man walked in front of him and punched him directly in the stomach. The fresh shock of pain did nothing good for his already stiff and aching ribs. Stiles wheezed, but couldn’t hunch over due to the men holding him upright. Tears sprung unbidden to his eyes but it was more of an involuntary reaction than the pain making him cry. He hoped that they wouldn’t fall, he didn’t want to give these guys the satisfaction.

“Stay out of the Preserve.”

“Tell me why; and I’ll consider it.”

This time, the punch was to his face, on the same side as the last time, causing it to sting as well as ache. The room tilted and spun a little around him, floating blobs of light freckling his vision. He wondered whether he’d have passed out if he hadn’t had two strapping young lads holding him upright. The last thought was almost immediately followed by a hysterical giggle; but he managed to supress it in time. He really didn’t want to laugh at these guys any more than was necessary. 

Boss man moved closer and Sir Punch-A-Lot stepped back. “Look, kid, you clearly know what you’re talking about. This board shows that. Just stay clear, okay? Rub all this off and get on with your life.”

“So it’s ‘Good Cop, Bad Cop’ is it?” Stiles said, bracing himself for a punch that never came.

Boss Man nodded at Sir Punch-A-Lot and Stiles craned his neck around following the guy until he was out of sight, standing behind Stiles.

Stiles heard Velcro being opened and craned his neck further, trying to get a look at what was happening, struggling against the immovable objects on either side of him. Suddenly, his hands were pulled behind his back and Boss Man himself moved out of view. Strong hands held his wrists together whilst other hands wrapped thin cord around them and pulled tight. _Cable tie_ , Stiles’ mind supplied. 

Once Stiles’ arms were secured, Sir Punch-A-Lot moved back around in front of him, caressing the bruise that was forming along Stiles’ cheekbone.

“Er, this is moving into uncomfortable territory, man.” Stiles said, unable to control his sarcasm in the face of such stacked odds.

The guy chuckled, patting Stiles hard on the cheek, causing the area to sting again. “I like this one."

“Keep it in your pants, we’ve got work to do.”

“Sir.”

So, Stiles had been right, Boss Man was actually the Boss Man. He didn’t feel particularly vindicated by the fact he’d worked that out, though.

Boss Man was taking photos of everything on the board. Once he’d done so, checking the photos on the camera for clarity, he set about rubbing the board clean. He probably thought he was obliterating evidence; but one look at an empty board would make both Scott and his dad realise that something was wrong. Stiles’ board was _never_ empty.

The man also picked up every piece of paper littering Stiles’ desk and seemed to check them for relevance, dumping the ones he deemed irrelevant back down onto the surface.

Stiles wished he wasn’t so impressed with their tactics. If this were a film, he’d be partially rooting for the ‘bad guys’; which was a really odd position to be in. 

“Got it, move out.”

Closet guy and Bed Monster almost lifted Stiles off the ground, turning him round. They re-grabbed his arms so quickly that if he had had a window of escape it was so small it was unlikely he could have taken it. Scott, on the other hand, would probably have these guys all that the police station by now. Seriously, why wasn’t this a day Scott needed to beat him at Call of Duty?

When they started to move him towards his bedroom door, the reality of the situation crowded in. This was rapidly spiralling out of control . He dug his heels into the carpet and twisted as much as he could in the iron grip of the mercenaries surrounding him.

“Hey, guys, guys, what’s going on, what are you doing? Guys, seriously this is a bad move, I’d be a _terrible_ hostage, I have ADHD and I never stop talking. Oh, and my best friend is a freaking _werewolf_ , so how the hell do you think you are going to…”

There was nothing more terrifying than the sound of a gun being cocked. 

Suddenly, Stiles was flashing back to crazy Matt, waving a gun in his face at the Sheriff’s station; the Chemist threatening to kill him in the school’s locker room; and Mr Argent pulling a gun on him in that fraught 45 minutes where Scott was almost dead. There had clearly been too many guns in his face recently; but that didn’t mean he was suicidal. He stilled.

“Thought that might get your attention.” Stiles recognised the voice of Sir Punch-A-Lot and the glee with which he appeared to be taking in the situation. “Now, you are going to calmly and quietly walk out of this house with us and into the van. You are not going to scream, shout or draw any kind of attention to yourself, okay?”

“You seriously think I’m going to co-operate with you, you’re bloody KIDNAPPING ME!”

A cold circle of metal met the back of his skull at the base of his neck. Stiles had started struggling again when he started to speak, but stilled when he felt the familiar, tell-tale pressure. 

“There you go. Just like that.”

Stiles trudged down the stairs, following the backs of Boss Man and Closet Guy. The stairs weren’t wide enough to walk two abreast, so he was momentarily freer than he had been in a while but he couldn’t do anything about it. He felt a presence behind him, so it wasn’t as if he could even run up the stairs again. Then again, where exactly was there to go? The frustration was infuriating. He had to be patient. There would be a situation in which he could escape, this just clearly wasn’t it.

Closet Guy jumped into the driver’s seat, whilst Stiles was pushed unceremoniously into the back of the nondescript van. Boss Man and Bed Monster jumped in behind him but he couldn’t see the man he was _really_ worried about. He supposed it was too much to ask for a sudden aneurysm to have befallen him.

Stiles was still pretty confused from the head hits and his shoulder ached from being shoved heard first into the back of a van with no means of slowing his fall. Was that crazy guy going to totally wreck his house? Was his father going to come home to a burnt out shell? He didn’t think he could bear it if he was the cause of yet more heartache for the elder Stilinski.

He was still confused when Sir Punch-A-Lot jumped in the van, banging on the wall which separated the cargo area from the driver.

The van started to move as Boss Man held out his hand to his subordinate. Stiles saw his prescription bottle being passed across. God, these guys were good.

~~~

They’d been sitting in the van for several minutes when Stiles tried one last attempt at getting out of this on his own.

“You know my Dad’s the Sheriff, right?”

The men shrugged and shared a glance over the top of Stiles’ head. They didn’t respond, and somehow, that was more chilling than if they had. It either meant they’d already known that and they didn’t care; or they hadn’t and they didn’t think it was worth worrying about.

Neither prospect made Stiles particularly happy. The likelihood of being hurt by some supernatural beast in Beacon Hills was a strong one, but somehow a human kidnapping filled him with horror. The not knowing would just _kill_ his dad and he’d given him enough pain as it was.

He fidgeted in the back of the van, trying to get as comfortable as he could, tied as he was. The van floor was all metal and he was getting cold already, despite only being in the van for mere minutes. He figured he was fortunate that it had been cold enough that he'd slept in his hoodie the previous night; but the thin pyjama trousers he was wearing were doing nothing against the October chill.

“Don’t try anything, Kid.” Sir Punch-A-Lot said, gesturing with the gun which had apparently not left his hand, despite the search through Stiles’ bedside table for his medication.

Stiles stilled. He was going to have to think this one out. These guys were too prepared for there to be a gap in their defences. This was a puzzle which needed a nuanced solution.

Stiles was good at puzzles.

“You’re not going to kill me,” Stiles said, hoping the statement was true. Why take a hostage if you were just going to kill them? Unless that was the point, to drive him out into the middle of the preserve and kill him, send a message that they weren’t to be trifled with? Stiles’ brain flashed on the image of the sacrifices Jennifer hade made to reignite the Nemeton. He shivered and it was only partially to do with the cold. He couldn’t let his friends find him like that.

“Maybe not _yet_ ,” the man sneered, “but you’d be surprised the amount of places on a human body you can shoot which won’t be fatal.” He looked thoughtful, pointing the gun at different parts of Stiles’ form. “It’ll hurt like a bitch kid; but it won’t kill you."

Stiles swallowed, sitting as still as he could as the van bounced along the road. He remembered rambling at the mercenaries that Scott could find him and that it was useless kidnapping him. Now he just hoped against all hope that he was right.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [inderlander](http://inderlander.tumblr.com) is the best beta in the world. (Also, [hurt-stiles](hurt-stiles.tumblr.com) is a menace #justsaying.)

“Have you seen Stiles?” Scott asked into his phone.

“No, why?” Lydia said, sounding sleepy when she spoke.

“His Jeep’s here; but he’s not answering his phone.”

“Scott, you’ve got to cut the umbilical cord at some point.” Lydia replied.

“Look, will you just come over, I’m worried. What if his leg got septic and he’s lying upstairs, unable to call for help?”

Lydia sighed, but Scott heard her getting out of bed anyway. “Okay, Scott. I’m on my way.”

Scott shut off his phone, unconsciously sniffing the air outside Stiles’ house. It seemed wrong somehow, panicked. There was normally an air of anxiety surrounding the Stilinski household, and had been for as long as Scott could remember; but this was different, and Scott couldn’t put his finger on why.

Lydia was true to her word, arriving at Stiles’ house in record time. Scott had no idea how she still looked like she’d stepped off the cover of a magazine. It was just one of the many ways in which Lydia Martin managed to surprise him on a daily basis.

Scott took to staring at the house again, trying to pinpoint the source of the odd smell. It was definitely Stiles but it wasn’t _only_ Stiles, which caused his best friends’ scent to be masked and confused Scott’s supernatural senses.

“Have you tried ringing the doorbell?”

Lydia’s question brought Scott back from his musings. “What?”

Lydia tutted and walked up the steps onto the porch. She lent on the doorbell for slightly longer than was necessary and then stepped back.

“Er, Lydia? Don’t you think I’ve already tried that?”

Lydia huffed but smiled at Scott as well.

When there was no answer after a further two leanings on the bell, both of which were longer than the original, Scott started to search the floor.

“Trapdoor?” Lydia asked, smiling further. It really wouldn’t surprise her if Stiles _had_ put in a trapdoor to his own basement. There was something so completely Stiles about the thought that she really was half expecting Scott to pull a secret lever and for the floor to open.

Scott grinned up at her. “We did think about it at one point, but no.” He waved a suspicious looking ornament at her. “Hide-A-Key.”

“What the hell is that?”

“I think it’s supposed to be a snail. Actually it’s done well; it survived the great ornament theft of 2002. Obviously wasn’t pretty enough.”

Lydia looked at Scott to see if he was joking but he seemed to be remembering it with fondness. “Of course it was Stiles who was doing the stealing, so I suppose it would have been odd if he’d taken this one as well.”

Scott continued to avail Lydia of the details of the thefts as they climbed the stairs to Stiles’ bedroom. There were the reasons that had set everything in motion (Mrs. Rosenburg had caught Stiles widdling in her flowerbeds and told him off, telling him he was being brought up wrong); the injustice of it all (Stiles had forgotten to go before they walked to school and he didn’t want to wet his trousers because his mum was busy getting better. She couldn’t always do the laundry in time and his dad was busy being a deputy, so he didn’t want to worry them. Scott had suggested Mrs. Rosenburg’s garden because it was partially obscured by hedges); the plotting of retribution (the tree house was always an important place for plotting something); and the final plan (which had involved taking an ornament a day from Mrs. Rosenburg’s garden, and a couple from elsewhere so as to throw off the scent). 

Lydia was starting to realise why Scott and Stiles were always in trouble. She was about to ask Scott what had happened when an adult inevitably found out, when she spotted Stiles’ murder-board through his partially open door. It was blank.

A wave of cold washed through her. The last time Stiles’ walls had been blank he had been recovering from the Nogitsune taking over his mind and had wanted a clean slate. Pushing open the door, she was half expecting to see Stiles passed out on the floor, having worked through some fever dream which resulted in him needing to get rid of all his meticulous notes.

“Stiles?” She called, unsure why she was doing so. Stiles’ room was oblong and it was immediately clear that he wasn’t in it.

Scott surveyed the scene from the doorway before turning away and heading down the hall. Calling out to Stiles, he raced through first the top floor of the house, and then the ground floor.

Scott met Lydia again in Stiles’ room just as she was dialling his cell. When it started to ring, Scott heard both the ringing which was happening in Lydia’s ear and the sound of the ringtone in the room. He found the culprit of the noise jammed between Stiles’ bedside table and the bed. It looked like it had fallen down the crack at some point during the night because it was still plugged in to charge.

Scott and Lydia shared a look of mingled confusion and concern.

Lydia bolted down the stairs, Scott following her. Scott knew that when Lydia moved like that, there was a damn good reason for it. Normally it was because she’d worked something out that she didn’t have time to explain; she and Stiles had that in common. 

Lydia stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looking at the table that was by the front door, underneath the coat hooks.

Scott hoped that she wasn’t looking at what he thought she was looking at.

As if bidden by his thought, Lydia lifted the subject of her stare up and showed it to Scott. Dangling from her perfectly manicured nail was a set of keys.

Stiles’ keys.

~~~

Stiles was led through a non-descript warehouse by Sir Punch-A-Lot. Two of his other captors had taken up positions on either side of him and were almost dragging him along at the speed they were walking. He had only a moment to notice a large table that took up the majority of what looked like a work area. Multiple white boards, which looked similar to his own, surrounded the table, almost boxing it in. There was a map stuck to one of the boards, with red circles and question marks over a large portion of it. Stiles idly thought it would have been better to circle the areas of the map where whatever they were searching for _wasn’t_.

He was led down several corridors with multiple doors on either side. The doors were the same dull grey as the rest of the corridor, almost springing up out of the mundanity. Stiles assumed they led into offices but he wasn’t given the grand tour so he didn’t know for sure.

The party stopped next to one of them. The place where a name plate would normally slide in was blank. Sir Punch-A-Lot pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket and fitted one in the door. Stiles watched carefully, filing their location away for future use. The older man met his eyes before he turned to walk into the room and made an exaggerated show of putting the keys back into his pocket. _Busted_.

The room was small, boasting only a small, oblong table with two chairs positioned across from each other on each of the longer edges. It immediately reminded Stiles of a police interrogation room, only without the two way mirror. 

Stiles was pushed into the chair furthest from the door. He was trying to figure out how he might use this to his advantage (who was he kidding?), when he felt a tug at his wrists. Too late, he realised that without releasing his wrists they had tethered the cable tie to the chair somehow, securing him further. He tugged experimentally but there was very little give. He supposed he could still stand and lift the chair with him; but was hard pressed to see how that would make his escape attempt any better. Maybe he could somehow twist himself off the chair and try to use it as a weapon?

Before he could work out how that might work to his advantage, Closet Guy was using his not inconsiderable strength to hold down his right leg, whilst Bed Monster was pulling his ankle towards the leg of the chair. Stiles felt, rather than saw, the thin cord which circled his ankle, binding his leg to the chair and removing all possibility of separating himself from it. He struggled as the same was done to his left ankle.

When they pulled his knees apart and started securing the tops of his calves to the chair leg as well, Stiles could bear it no longer.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit overkill, guys?” 

The two ‘friendlier’ kidnappers stepped away and Sir Punch-A-Lot, true to his name, punched Stiles in the ribs . He couldn’t possibly have heard them crack, even if they had, but _something_ definitely moved in there. His breath left him in a whoosh and he found himself panting through the pain, trying to pull air back into his lungs. Now was decidedly _not_ the time for a panic attack and he managed to actually tell his body this, something which had hitherto been unforeseen.

“Right, got it. You don’t want to chat about your kidnapping methods. That’s okay, some people are particular about constructive criticism, and you’ve got to know your audience. My bad,” Stiles wheezed. 

Sir Punch-A-Lot leaned in to Stiles’ space, placing his hand against Stiles’ bruised cheek and grabbing Stiles’ hair so that his head was forced backwards. “That’s it, keep joking. I’m just going to _love_ beating that out of you.” 

Stiles might have responded, he really couldn’t tell, but then Boss Man walked in and Sir Punch-A-Lot moved away from him. Stiles barely repressed a shudder, that guy was really starting to creep him out.

The leader sat down opposite Stiles, looking like he was about to have a perfectly pleasant conversation, maybe hold a job interview. Stiles nearly laughed but his ribs hurt too much to contemplate it at the moment.

“Look kid, we don’t want to do this. We just want to know what you know.”

“I know quite a lot, really. I’m not massively enamoured with Calculus, although my girlfriend’s finding it really hard, so actually, teaching her is really helping my own learning style and hey, learning’s learning isn’t it? I know quite a lot about the inner workings of the poli…”

Stiles had only a second’s notice that he was about to be hurt. A minute nod from Boss Man and a swift kick to the shin from Sir Punch-A-Lot, caused him to gasp. Stiles briefly considered changing the guy’s moniker to ‘Sir-Punches-A-Lot-But-Also-apparently-Kicks-Now-Too’; but discounted it when he realised that it was unwieldly, even if you were only saying it in your head. 

“What are you, 12? What grown man kicks a guy in the shin?” Stiles protested.

Sir Punch-A-Lot moved closer to Stiles again and Stiles had no doubt that he would have been hurt further if Boss Man hadn’t intervened.

“You lot, clear out!”

“Sir?”

“Did I stutter, Mo…” Boss Man closed his mouth quickly over the word he’d nearly inadvertently let slip. He ran his fingers through his hair and wished for an easy Falcon Protocol for once. “Did I stutter, soldier?”

“No, Sir.”

The men left the room and Stiles eyed the Boss Man warily. His shin still stung and he knew his face was bruising nicely.

“Look kid, my guys are trained in all sorts of hideous torture and I could expound on it but I know you know that. You’ve got to know at least a _little_ who we are. So just tell us what you know, help us and we’ll let you go.”

Stiles looked up and stared straight into the face of the man who ultimately held his fate. “I think we both know that’s not true.”

“It doesn’t have to be a lie.”

Stiles huffed; but didn’t say another word.

“Just think about it, kid.”

The door opened and closed and Stiles realised that was all he could think of. If he thought about his friends it made him angry and protective and worried for their safety; if he thought about his dad, he wanted to cry and he was damned if these guys were going to see that. 

So he sat and he waited and he thought and, after a while, wished his nose didn’t itch so much.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [inderlander](http://inderlander.tumblr.com) deserves a lot of props for her constant cheerleading and brilliant beta skills.
> 
> It's still all [hurt-stiles'](http://hurt-stiles.tumblr.com) fault.

The grey (and seriously was _everything_ in here grey?) door Stiles had been staring at for an inordinate amount of time opened. He had a brief moment where he thought he might have somehow opened it by sheer force of will, but that was quashed by the very real threat that walked through the door.

Sir Punch-A-Lot swaggered in with a wicked looking knife already in his large hand.

Stiles stopped breathing, despite his heart hammering in his chest. So this was it, this was how he died. He hoped it wasn’t his dad who found his body; hoped that he was just dead, not mangled – because he knew his dad would at least have to steel himself to ID him; hoped his dad didn’t get hurt trying to find out who these men were; hoped he wasn’t a failure to the only family he had left, even in death.

Stiles still lent away from the knife when his assailant came towards him, it was an involuntary gesture and it wasn’t missed. The man laughed, leered and lent around behind him. Stiles could smell sweat, oil and mud. He filed the information away in the part of his brain that always looked for clues, a part of his brain that in his 17 years of life he’d not yet been able to turn off. He felt a pressure on his wrists and then an odd snapping sound and his wrists were free of the chair (although still tied, he noted).

His breath came out in a whoosh and the older man laughed. The guy had been playing with him; was still playing with him. Stiles let out another involuntary gesture – this time a shudder – and the man carried on chuckling as he removed the cable ties from Stiles’ legs too.

The man lifted Stiles to his feet. Stiles wavered a little and the man steadied him by linking his arm through Stiles’. For some reason it struck Stiles like a parody of how lovers on a date might stroll along together and the ridiculousness of the thought drew him back to himself.

“I like you man; but I just don’t see this going anywhere. I mean you’re a kidnapper, I’m a hostage…it would just never work out between us.”

The man used the arm that wasn’t linked through Stiles’ to punch Stiles straight in the jaw. It was so hard that Stiles once again saw white floating blobs, and debated with himself whether you could get a concussion from several small head hits over a period of time rather than one large one.

“You done?” The man asked, his hand now fisted in Stiles’ hoodie in a clear gesture of intent.

Stiles nodded, not trusting himself to speak. His sarcasm was clearly working in overtime as a response to the threat and he didn’t want to be hurt any more than was strictly necessary.

He was once more led down a series of nondescript corridors. He couldn’t remember whether they were the same ones that he’d been dragged down before, everything was suddenly a little fuzzy. Maybe he really was concussed. Scott couldn’t get here soon enough.

When they arrived in the huge space that they’d only breezed through the previous night, Sir Punch-A-Lot moved away from him and was replaced by Bed Monster and Closet Guy. They dragged him towards the huge table boxed in by free-standing white boards.

Stiles’ head swivelled as he took in all of the information suddenly surrounding him. The mercenaries had made a few of the same connections that the pack had and actually some of the information drew links to the stuff that they had researched. Stiles just wished he had someone to tell about it that wasn’t these goons. Clearly they couldn’t be trusted with whatever this was.

One of the men grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced him to look down at the table instead of the boards. Stiles was momentarily surprised to see his own handwriting blown up large and covering the table.

Boss Man appeared from somewhere.

“Explain.”

Stiles’ head was released and he was able to pinpoint the voice. “Explain what?”

Stiles felt his hair grabbed again but it wasn’t painful, merely holding him in place. The knife that was suddenly in front of him _could_ be painful. It was held in the grip of someone standing behind him, their arm draped across his shoulder. It moved ever so slowly towards his head and, when it connected, drew a line from the bottom of his chin up behind his ear and partially into his hairline.

Stiles hissed with pain, although it didn’t actually hurt more than any of the other injuries he’d recently sustained. It was the slow drag of the knife, and the intent behind it which made his whole body go cold.

The knife withdrew but the man behind him did not. Stiles could hear him breathing.

“Shall we try that again?” Boss Man said almost kindly.

“What, precisely, would you like me to explain?”

The knife appeared in front of him again, not moving but threatening nonetheless.

“No, I’m not being difficult. I mean, there’s a lot of information here, man. What _bit_ do you want me to talk about?”

The knife continued to hover; but didn’t move. Stiles found it difficult to focus on Boss Man, the knife pulling focus and giving him a headache.

Boss Man tapped a portion of the giant sprawling board. “Explain _that_.”

Stiles looked down, a feat difficult with the knife in front of him; but he managed it. He was practically being held up by the goons, his legs felt like jelly and he was partially pleased they were there. Sort of.

The man had tapped a portion of the board which showed one of the latest additions he'd made, the circled question ‘ _Mercenaries?_ ’.

“What’s difficult about that?” Stiles replied reflexively.

This time, the knife traced the same route, biting in deeper as it ran over the previous wound. Stiles hissed.

“What? I mean, I don’t understand what you need explained. Isn’t that what you are?”

Boss Man appraised him. Stiles felt naked under the scrutiny he was suddenly under; but was honestly confused by the question. He knew he wouldn’t tell these guys anything, was coming up with convincing lies for various parts of the board which was now so big that it was grainy in places; but he hadn’t come up with anything for this one, because quite frankly he hadn’t thought it was important.

“What I want to know Mr Stilinski, is why you thought we were important enough to go on your _board_ here.” The man managed to make 'board; sound like an insult and Stiles' immediate instinct was to bristle and defend his thought processes.

Stiles laughed and the knife moved slightly closer.

“Look, I don’t know, alright. You turn up in my house, unannounced by the way; and threaten us if we don’t stop looking into the murders in the preserve. I mean it didn’t take a genius to work out that you were working with the creature involved in the…” Stiles trailed off, looking at the boards surrounding the table, before his head was pushed down again. “…there’s no creature, is there? It’s just you.”

“I knew your brain would be an asset to our operation. Welcome to command.”

“Er, _thanks_?” Stiles replied, sarcasm dripping from the question.

The knife returned, the cut going deeper still. Stiles had given an impotent shout and started to struggle; but he could barely move with the goons surrounding him and his hands still tied behind his back. All the struggling got him was a slight deviation from the original wound.

“Look, we can work together on this; or we can make life very difficult for you. Which is it to be?” Boss Man said, unfazed by the scene in front of him.

“And what is ‘this’?” Stiles bit out, refusing to be swayed by the blood seeping into the fabric around his throat.

“This is the dawning of a new era.” The man replied.

“Oh bloody hell, not again.” Stiles said to the room at large.

A painful hit to the head was the only response he got. 

In the moments before he lost consciousness, time seemed to stretch. He wondered once again whether he would have a concussion. Stiles thought he heard a chuckle from behind him (the ever-present sadist of the group) and thought he saw a smile on the face of Boss Man. Just before he totally blacked out, he also thought he heard one of them (and he couldn’t tell which) say “He’s going to be hard to break,” and a response of: “I’ve not failed to break anyone yet. I’m not going to start with this kid.” from Sir Punch-A-Lot.

Then the world fell into darkness.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [inderlander](http://inderlander.tumblr.com) deserves all the props for doing such a stellar job of betaing and cheerleading. [hurt-stiles](http://hurt-stiles.tumblr.com) not only gets props for helping me come up with this idea; but also for filling my head with delicious Hurt!Stiles pictures.

When Stiles came to, he shivered. He felt cold and he was momentarily unsure why, until it all came crashing back in. Kidnapped. Right.

He experimentally moved each portion of his body, noticing that his shoulders ached but that his hands were free from the ties. He looked down at his wrists, noting the red chafing around them; he stopped himself just short of rubbing the welts that were forming. He lifted his hand to his head, (which seemed to sting) and winced when he accidentally pressed on the wound behind his right ear. It had stopped bleeding; but was still painful.

When he attempted to move his legs, he realised they were now tied. Once again it felt like his kidnappers had gone overboard with the restraints. He was tied at his ankles, above and below his knees and around his thighs. He briefly wondered whether his assailants had shares in a company which made zip ties.

His appraisal of himself finished, he looked up; straight into the eyes of Bed Monster. The guy was lounging in a chair by the door. The room was totally bare apart from that chair. The man’s relaxed manner riled Stiles, it was a pose of such arrogance, saying ‘this kid can’t possibly hurt me’. Perhaps the fact that it was true was the reason Stiles immediately bristled. 

“Eat.” The man said, gesturing to Stiles’ side.

Stiles saw a pre-packaged sandwich and a bottle of water next to his left hip. It had been previously unnoticed, which meant he was slipping. His head was pounding and he was now utterly convinced he had a concussion because he was nauseous. He wasn’t sure that he could swallow down any food; but his rational brain was telling him he needed to keep his strength up. Feeding the hostage was a good sign too, it meant they wanted to keep him around, meant that he wasn’t going to die; at least not yet.

Glaring at the man, Stiles followed the instructions. The sandwich tasted like cardboard in his mouth; but the water was well received. He hadn’t realised how thirsty he was. Just how long had he been here anyway? With all the bouts of unconsciousness, he realised he had lost all track of time. He idly wondered how the pack was doing. Were they safe? Were they looking for him?

~~~

Sheriff Stilinski was tearing around his house, Scott in tow.

“Can you get a scent? Can you track anything?”

“As far as I can tell, he got in a car. I got three other scents but I’ve never smelt them before. I can’t track a vehicle.”

The sheriff slammed his palm flat against the hallway wall. “There must be _something_ we can do!”

“We’re looking, the police are looking, we’ll find him, Sheriff. We will.”

The look of fear that crossed his surrogate Dad’s face was one Scott thought he would take to his grave. He rested a hand on the older man’s arm, offering a wan smile.

“Come on, let’s go.”

~~~

“Lean forward,” Bed Monster said, looming over Stiles and sporting yet another cable tie.

“Look is this really necessary? You have all the guns, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Just following orders.” The man responded whilst he secured Stiles’ wrists behind his back again. 

Stiles’ shoulders were screaming at him but there was nothing he could do; he was trussed up like a turkey.

Bed Monster crossed to the door and banged on it once. The door opened quickly and Closet Guy entered. Stiles noted that he had clearly been waiting for the signal - this operation was slick.

Stiles was momentarily pleased that Closet Guy had entered and a hysterical giggle nearly escaped when he realised he had ‘favourite’ kidnappers.

He couldn’t afford to lose it; he needed to come up with a way to escape. He hadn’t seen an avenue to pursue yet; but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. He just had to assess everything and make his move when he had more information. The whole thing wasn’t hopeless yet. Stiles was aware that the number of head hits he received was inversely proportional to the likelihood of escape; so he hoped he could think through the fog surrounding his thoughts and rein his sarcasm in enough to not receive any more.

Now there was two of them in the room, Closet Guy lent down and snapped off the ties on Stiles’ legs, using the knife he pulled from a sheath on his belt. They hauled him to his feet, pushing him through the door, one mercenary in front, one behind. When they were in the corridor, they linked arms with him again, marching him towards who knew what.

~~~

“Those three scents have been in the preserve. He’s been taken by whatever we’ve been tracking.”

The Sheriff’s shoulders lost a tiny part of their tension. “Can you backtrack those scents to its lair?”

“I can try.” Scott replied, hoping against hope that he actually could.

~~~

Stiles was staring at his board again, his head pushed down so he could see very little of his captors' work.

“Look, if you want me to help, I’m going to need to see what you’ve found out too. I’ve been staring at my board for at least a week and I can’t make head nor tails of it.”

Stiles didn’t miss the look that passed between the mercenaries at his statement, Boss Man nodded and he was straightened out. His back protested; but at least he could now look at all the information. It didn’t look good.

“Talk!” Boss Man demanded.

“Geez, give me a minute,” Stiles replied as he was forced into a chair next to the table.

He felt a presence behind him and Closet Monster was standing threateningly off to the side. Boss Man leaned on the giant table. He nodded at the man behind Stiles, and Stiles just _knew_ that it was Sir-Punch-A-Lot. Stiles’ body flooded with a wave of cold and he stilled, his body tensing under the strain.

When he felt the cold of a knife at his throat again, he stilled even further and stopped breathing. The man behind him chuckled, before using the knife to rip the hoodie from Stiles’ body. Stiles felt a brief spike of indignation. He’d _liked_ that hoodie.

Sir Punch-A-Lot didn’t stop there. He ripped the shoulder seam on his T-shirt, exposing his right shoulder and upper arm. Stiles had only a moment to wonder why they had done that before he felt the knife actually dig into his skin.

“Tell us what you know!”

Stiles looked right into Boss Man’s eyes. “Not a lot.”

Boss Man nodded and Stiles’ shoulder was suddenly a mass of pain, Sir Punch-A-Lot seeming to be digging around in it. He tried to suppress a shout for as long as possible; but eventually he screamed . 

As soon as he did, the knife was withdrawn. “Ready to talk now?”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Okay,” Boss Man started conversationally. “Okay, maybe we’re being a bit too hard on you, maybe you need a specific question; closed parameters.”

Stiles just looked at the guy, not sure where he was going with this. The man pointed at the map that was stuck to the board directly in front of Stiles, the majority of which was circled with red.

“Where’s the Nemeton?”

Stiles couldn’t help it, couldn’t school his face into a mask in time. He looked up, recognition and confusion evident in his face.

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Boss Man crowed almost gleefully. “Where is it?”

“Never heard of it.” Stiles answered. If these guys wanted to find the Nemeton, they definitely weren’t up to anything good.

“That’s how you want to play it? Okay, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.” He nodded once again at Sir Punch-A-Lot. 

Closet Guy held Stiles down whilst the other man went to work.

“Where is it?”

“I said I’ve never _heard_ of it.”

Stiles didn’t think he’d ever been in this much pain before He wondered somewhat academically why he hadn’t passed out by now and worried he actually wasn’t going to make it until Scott got here.

“Kid, this can stop anytime you like, just tell us what we need to know.”

“You think this is bad?” Stiles bit out through gritted teeth. “You have no _idea_ the year I’ve just had.”

Boss Man whirled away from the table, his hands thrown up in annoyance.

As he turned, there was a scuffle behind Stiles. He tried to turn to look; but Closet Guy got in his way.

“We need to move. NOW,” Bed Monster said and Stiles knew he was slipping, because he hadn’t even realised that the guy wasn’t there.

Boss Man didn’t even question the statement, starting to rip down the maps and charts around the table. Closet Guy and Bed Monster joined him.

“Make a move, I dare you,” Sir Punch-A-Lot threatened, casually holding the knife in front of Stiles’ face.

When the paper was removed, they picked up black hard-cases which were scattered around the room.

Just as Stiles was pushed out the door, he was able to glimpse the area that they’d just been in. There was no sign he’d even been there. He ‘accidentally’ bumped into the door with his bleeding shoulder, hoping that at least a drop of blood stuck, a small proof that he had been here.

When he was unceremoniously shoved back into the van, he landed on his bad shoulder, yelping with the unexpected pain. He briefly wondered whether the van was sanitary as the engine started and it drove off to God knew where.

~~~

Scott got to the door first, running through it, searching to see if there was an immediate threat and looking for any sign of his best friend.

The rest of the pack weren’t far behind and between them they searched the entire warehouse in very little time. By unspoken agreement, they met at the giant table in the centre of the main room. It seemed to be the focal point of the warehouse, being lit from above by harsh spotlights. It was devoid of any clues apart from a tiny corner still taped down; it had apparently been ripped when the paper had been taken off the table.

“There’s nothing here!” Scott said, letting his frustration come to the fore. 

As he whirled around, he caught a different scent, one he knew very well. He ran back towards the door, searching for anything that would point towards where Stiles was. 

Scott ran his hand through a wet patch on the door jamb and when he pulled his hand away it was stained red. He crumpled then, on the wall right by the door, his back leaning against the corrugated iron.

“Scott?” Lydia enquired, walking towards him. “Scott, what is it?”

The rest of the pack joined her, circling Scott’s prone form. By way of answer, Scott reached his hand out, the blood glistening on his fingers.

“He was here. Stiles was right _here_. It’s still wet!” Scott exclaimed, pushing himself away from the wall and standing in one fluid motion. 

He pushed through his friends, heading for open space, a place where he could pace. He had failed. His best friend was out there somewhere _bleeding_ and he couldn’t find him. He had all these stupid werewolf senses and he couldn’t fucking find him. Stiles was going to die because of him.

Scott could vaguely hear people calling his name; but it was if the voices were coming from a long way off.

Stalking towards the table, he lifted it with both hands and tipped it towards two of the free-standing boards which clattered to the floor. It felt good to take his anger out on these inanimate objects. He ripped them to pieces, not stopping until his hands were wounded and healing, wounded and re-healing.

A hand grabbed his arm and he whirled, his wolf in full force, his eyes and arms red. He was about to attack when he saw the girl for what she was. She wasn’t a threat, she was pack. The wolf receded slightly and Scott could feel his face returning to normal.

“Malia,” he tried, speaking around his fangs. He thought that was what her name was. “Malia,” he tried again, now fully human both in appearance and mind and aware of what was going on. “Malia, he’s gone,” he finished, whispering.

“Yes.” Malia replied, succinct as always. “But we’re going to find him.”

“He’s bleeding.” Scott said to the room, all fight having left him. He sunk to his knees, suddenly unable to hold his weight. “He could be dead.”

“He’s not dead.” Lydia replied firmly. “I’d know…and in any case if he were dead there’d be a pool of blood somewhere. We searched this place top to bottom and that was the only blood we found, wasn’t it?”

Scott didn’t reply.

“ _Wasn’t it_ , Scott?”

Scott took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“Right, so we’re going to take that as a clue; Stiles probably did it on purpose, knew we’d be coming for him. We are going to use this clue and we are going to find him.”

Scott didn’t reply.

“We are going to find him, _aren’t we_ , Scott?”

Scott took another deep breath, this time actually looking at Lydia. “Yes.” He said firmly.

“Good, let’s go.”

~~~

Stiles watched the whole scene in glorious technicolour on a tablet held by Closet Guy, the bumps in the road forcing him to squint in places when the screen moved.

He’d never seen Scott like that, never seen him lose it to that degree. He looked like he was going to attack Malia when she’d grabbed him. There was no sound but it was obvious what was happening. Stiles had meant the blood to be a clue, not a cause of such angst. 

A single solitary tear escaped from Stiles’ left eye when Scott fell to his knees. He looked so defeated and that made Stiles hurt more than any of the torture he’d endured that day.

The man in charge wasn’t watching the screen, he was watching his hostage. He watched and saw leverage just fall into his lap. He could use this kid’s friends against him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved writing Lydia quite a lot in this apparently.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [inderlander](http://inderlander.tumblr.com) and [hurt-stiles ](http://hurt-stiles.tumblr.com) should take all credit for this hurt/comfort!

“Why?” Stiles asked. 

He knew he sounded despondent and didn’t care anymore that his kidnappers knew. They’d driven for at least half an hour from wherever the previous warehouse had been. The place was almost an exact copy of the one they’d just vacated. Stiles thought for a minute that it was the same place; but two of the men efficiently set up the free-standing boards whilst the other held Stiles upright. There was no evidence to suggest that it was the same place. Stiles was fully aware that the chances of finding him were reduced if he’d been taken out of the county. It pained him when he thought about what his dad might be going through; and he wished he could be rescued, if only to take the pain away from the only parent he had left.

Boss Man didn’t answer his question. “It can stop, this whole thing can stop, if you just co-operate with us.

Stiles looked up slowly, saying nothing.

“Have it your way, kid.” The man replied, stuffing the photo into an envelope with exaggerated care. “Oh; and I wrote a haiku too.”

Stiles must have looked confused, because the man continued, “You know, to give the werewolf something to think about.”

Stiles glared at the man; but read the proffered paper when it was thrust under his nose.

 _Look at those bruises_  
_The canvas is so tempting_  
_Your friend bleeds well too_

“Don’t,” Stiles said, knowing that his concern about the envelope would be giving the man greater leverage, but not caring in that moment. He couldn’t let this man send it without at least _trying_ to stop him and words were all he had left to bargain with. 

“I don’t have to. You start talking and it’s over. Until then, these are being sent. We need to give the werewolf a different focus. He’s still poking around in that preserve, and we can’t have that. If they’re looking for you, they’re not looking for us.”

Stiles couldn’t help it, his sarcasm reflex was triggered, consequences be damned. “You really are insane. If they’re looking for me, they’re going to find you; or are you guys astrally projecting or something?”

The only response Stiles got was a pushing of a hand into his shoulder. He gasped.

“They're _not_ looking for us. They're looking for the guys who are running around the preserve. Only your group aren’t really doing that anymore, are they? They’ve stopped, and they're looking for you. What makes you so special? Why are _you_ more important than murder victims who've had their organs cut out?"

Stiles understood then. This had nothing to do with a ransom, the man wasn’t going to ask to trade him, he was just going to vindictively send taunts to his friends in the hope that it would distract the from what these guys were doing. Stiles was annoyed to realise that it would work. He knew that Scott would already be blaming himself, it was just his way; and if he’d had any doubt Scott’s behaviour in the previous lair proved he was worried. Stiles knew that this was going to make it worse. He was furious with himself for not fighting, for not trying to get out of this situation on his own. His own inadequacies were going to hurt his friends. Again. That thought alone nearly made him cry; but he resolutely refused to do so. He wasn’t giving these _people_ any more leverage than he already had.

He wasn’t sure if he could handle people dying because of him again, he couldn’t go through that horror a second time.

Stiles didn’t say anything. He knew that there was nothing he could say. 

The man pushed the paper into the envelope and left the envelope on the table, well within Stiles’ eye line. He saw Scott’s familiar address, an address that was half his and he attempted to stand. He didn’t know what he was going to do, he just knew that he wanted to attack.

It was a fruitless task, because his hands were still bound. He’d had a brief reprieve earlier when they’d barricaded him in a bathroom so he could clean himself up; but as soon as he’d finished, he had been bound again. His clothes hadn’t been there when he’d got out of the shower either, his shoulder throbbing in time with his heart beat. Instead, there had been underwear, track pants and a wife beater. Stiles assumed that was so they could get to as much skin as possible. The idea flooded him with a cold fear and the small amount of happiness he’d gained from being in charge of himself for a few minutes disappeared completely.

He was pushed back into the chair by two strong hands. The flash of pain he received when the man’s hands touched his right shoulder again nearly made him pass out. His vision contracted and the world tilted slightly before righting itself again.

They left him alone for a while, his hands secured to the back of the chair again. He didn’t even consider escaping; there was no chance he was going to manage it, so he didn’t see the point.

Stiles looked over the data again, more for something to do than anything else and he saw something he hadn’t spotted before. He didn’t know whether it was a new addition or whether he just hadn't made the connection until now; but he suddenly knew what they were trying to do. He knew why they needed the Nemeton and he was damned if he was going to give them the information.

His captors walked back in after an indeterminate amount of time. Stiles knew his face showed some interest and he didn’t change it quick enough.

“Found anything interesting?” Boss Man asked conversationally.

“Your handwriting sucks.” Stiles replied automatically.

He expected the flare of pain at his shoulder; but it didn’t come. Instead he felt the tell-tale pain of the knife cut him from shoulder to elbow for the second time, the knife digging into the newly healed wound. He looked at it and then wished he hadn’t. This was rapidly getting out of hand.

“What do you guys want with the Nemeton anyway?” Stiles asked, fishing for as much information as possible, information they could use to stop these guys when he was rescued. _If_ he was rescued.

Boss Man thought for a moment then shrugged. He sounded patient when he responded, which struck Stiles as odd. They didn’t seem like the type to monologue in a Bond Villain sort of way; then again, the kidnappers clearly thought they were totally in control of the situation. Stiles was reluctantly forced to agree with their assessment.

“We’re going to use it as a power source,” Boss Man replied.

Closet Guy opened his mouth to say something; but closed it again after a quick shake of the head from Boss Man.

So, they weren’t telling him everything. Stiles would have been surprised at this point if they were.

“A power source for what?” Stiles asked, curious in spite of himself.

“Us. It’s going to power us.”

Stiles looked at him a moment after the pronouncement; and then he laughed. He laughed because it was all going to be okay. He re-evaluated his assessment of the men, gratified to note that they really were stupid. Even if these guys found the Nemeton they were going to blow themselves up trying to tap into it. The sheer idiocy of their plan made him giggle, he couldn’t help it. Even after Sir Punch-A-Lot went to town on his already ruined shoulder, it took him a moment to calm himself down. When the pain crashed back in, he struggled to maintain his silence, letting out a pained gasp only after it became too much.

“Find that funny do you?” Sir Punch-A-Lot said menacingly from behind Stiles’ back.

“Yes, actually.” Stiles replied immediately, his snark response greater than his self-preservation at that point.

Sir Punch-A-Lot replied by inflicting a blinding pain on Stiles’ shoulder. He turned to see what had been done and he saw the handle of the knife. The blade was actually stuck in his shoulder. He’d been stabbed.

 _Enough was enough_ , he thought, moments before he passed out from the pain .


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's still all [hurt-stiles](http://hurt-stiles.tumblr.com)' fault.
> 
> Betaed by the lovely [inderlander](http://inderlander.tumblr.com).

Stiles woke up in a different room and noticed that he’s wasn’t tied at all. That alone was enough to send a bolt of fear through him. Why wasn’t he?

There was water again; and food. He was enough himself that he wondered if he’d get bored of these sandwiches soon.

He stood to get a feel for what the room was like and immediately sagged against the wall, a wave of dizziness coming over him. That’s when he remembered he’d been stabbed. He nearly toppled over trying to get a look at his shoulder; but there was no knife there now. It was covered in swathes of bandages though and he idly wondered how bad it was. They hadn't tended any of his previous injuries. It explained the dizziness, he had probably lost a ton of blood.

After taking a few deep breaths, he attempted standing again and this time managed to stagger over to the door.

Predictably, it was locked.

He thought it was both good news and bad news. Good because he wasn’t being tortured at this precise moment; and bad because he couldn’t get out. He wasn’t sure he actually wanted to get out; out there was far less safe than in here. He couldn’t learn anything about what the men were planning from inside this room though. It wasn’t anything good, he knew that with certainty now. The organs that had been harvested, the fact they needed the Nemeton, it all confirmed what the pack had been thinking about it being a rite. A rite for _what_ Stiles didn’t know; but he intended to find out. That is unless he broke before then and helped them. Stiles thought that dying would be preferable to the world but he didn’t know whether he had that self-sacrificing nature in him right now. It was one thing to stare down a bullet with an imminent threat but quite another leading to a slow and painful death.

He slunk back to the corner he’d woken up in and sat down, the thoughts exhausting him almost as much as his injuries. He rubbed his wrists as he did so. He had welts on them now. He didn’t think he’d struggled much; but then each torture session seemed to blend into the next, so he couldn’t be sure. Certainly being tied over and over again in the same spot was causing him injury. He barked out a laugh at that; because of all the injuries he had, he thought that was probably the least severe and yet it was the one he was focusing on. God, this situation was fucked up.

His laugh aborted and quickly turned into a sob. The tears streaming down his face and dripping into his clothes; but he didn’t wipe them away. He didn’t really have the energy.

After a while he reached for the food, wanting to keep his strength up. He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. 

~~~

“Look I don’t care about protocol at the moment; it’s my son that’s out there! Do you understand what I’m trying to say to you?”

There was a response on the other end of the line and it clearly wasn’t the one the Sheriff wanted because he threw the entire phone at the wall. The plastic chipped off and fell everywhere. The cord had knocked three pen pots and the handset of another phone off various desks in the station.

Every deputy apart from Parrish suddenly found something very important to look at on their keyboards. Deputy Parrish walked across the room and took the Sheriff by his arm and moved him into his office.

The Sheriff took several deep breaths and wished he still had a bottle in his desk drawer.

As soon as the door was shut behind them, the Sheriff whirled around.

“They won’t help!”

Parrish wanted to be pragmatic; but realised that that wasn’t what the Sheriff needed at that point.

“What can I do?” He asked instead. 

“You…you’re _special_ , do you have any special talents we’re not utilising?”

“I don’t think setting the Sheriff station on fire is a good plan.” Parrish replied, smiling slightly.

The Sheriff smiled back wanly but collapsed into his chair, holding his head in his hands moments later. He knew Parrish was trying to help, he just wished they had more to go on. He wasn’t ready to bury another member of his family. It didn’t seem fair that they’d got through the last hellish year only for Stiles to be kidnapped. It seemed so pedestrian somehow.

“We’ll find him Sheriff, we will.”

“Odds of that diminish every hour he’s gone, you know that.”

Parrish found he didn’t have anything to say to that, so he left the Sheriff to his misery. Sometimes having too many people around could cloud the Sheriff’s thinking and he didn’t want to be in the room when he realised that. He’d been shouted at more times in the last four days than he had in his whole career.

~~~

Scott collapsed to the floor of Stiles’ bedroom. They’d all started having pack meetings in there after Stiles’ disappearance. He tried really hard not to think that what they were actually doing was holding a vigil. He refused to believe Stiles was dead; but now, like Lydia, he felt death encroaching.

“I got this in the mail this morning,” Scott said quietly.

He had agonised about whether to share it with the pack; but in the end decided they should all be in the loop. He had briefly considered only showing them the letter (if you could call it that); but didn’t want to miss any clues. Maybe there was something in the photo that Lydia could use to work out Stiles’ whereabouts; or maybe Malia could smell something in the paper that would point to the place Stiles was being held.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Everything had boiled down to that one word and he hated it: Hated this whole situation; hated his own inadequacies; hated the pack for not being good enough; hated the Sheriff for letting this happen; even occasionally hated Stiles for not fighting hard enough to get away. He knew the last one was unfair. He knew Stiles, knew he would have fought tooth and nail to get free. It just made Scott feel slightly better to be angry at everything. He worried that he was becoming difficult to be around, thought that the pack might be ‘managing’ him; but he couldn’t seem to stop it. He needed to find Stiles. Now. He wasn’t functioning very well with only half a heart . 

Scott opened the envelope slowly and removed both items from it. There was, predictably, no return address.

“I thought there might be a clue in here we could use,” he continued, still speaking quietly and annoyed at himself for doing so. _Funeral pall_ the snide part of his brain supplied. 

He purposely spoke louder when he carried on speaking, “It’s not pretty.”

He put the items on the floor inside the circle of his friends. Opening the note, he put that by the side of the other, smaller piece of paper.

“Oh, _Stiles_ ,” Lydia said.

The sentiment reverberated with everyone but no-one else said a word. A picture was worth a thousand words, after all; and this one was screaming. 

Stiles’ face was bruised under one eye and the other eyebrow was split. Behind one ear and stretching under his chin was an angry looking wound; but it was his arm and shoulder which caused everyone to gasp. His right shoulder was a complete mess, more wound than unmarred skin. Someone out of shot was holding a wound dressing away so that the photograph would show all of the damage. The shallow (in comparison) wound leading from elbow to shoulder seemed to be pointing towards the mess. Stiles was looking at the camera; but only because his hair was being pulled back by another hand. His face showed determination, but he had a look in his eyes. Scott had been studying this photo for hours; but it was only now that he realised when he’d seen Stiles look like that before. That was the look Stiles had given him when he’d been separated from the Nogitsune, that was a look that screamed he was in pain but refused to show it. Another ripple of anger ran through him, the emotion a near-constant in his life at this point.

“We have to find him.” Malia said, breaking the silence.

“We will.” Scott replied, determination stripping away all of his previous self-deprecating thoughts. He was going to be strong for Stiles; because that was exactly what Stiles needed right now. This wasn’t about him and his feelings, this was about his best friend.

They were going to find him, he could promise Stiles that.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, I'm grateful for [inderlander](http://inderlander.tumblr.com) and [hurt-stiles](http://hurt-stiles.tumblr.com). Actually _grateful_ might not be the right word.

Stiles felt deflated, he had no idea how long he’d been captive and wasn’t sure it even really mattered at this point.

The torture seemed to be never ending and his decision not to help the men was wavering. Logically, he knew that helping them would hurt Beacon Hills and, by extension, his friends; but his logical brain was being shouted down by his pain receptors and he didn't know how much longer he could hold off.

The men had stopped leaving the base as far as Stiles could tell, which meant they had everything they needed for whatever it was they were planning to do. That fact made Stiles happy, because it meant no other sacrifices were needed; but sad, because that meant he was running out of time to stall them. He might be the final sacrifice, or he might just be the bit of information they needed. Either way, it was bad.

Stiles had no real idea how long he’d been there, no idea where ‘there’ even was. They hadn’t moved again and the snide part of his brain kept bringing that to the fore, kept taunting him with the thought that if he hadn’t been found by now, he wasn’t going to be. He could tell that the men holding him were starting to get impatient. They were getting sloppy in their handling of him. He was still tied whenever he was let out of the room (though not when he was in ‘his’ room, which he was thankful for); but he was able to hear snatches of conversation when before they had been careful not to even speak near him.

He’d managed to garner that Closet Guy was actually called ‘Austin’ and that apparently he was the dullard of the group, often being belittled by his colleagues. Stiles didn’t know if knowing this information was going to help him; but he’d take anything he could. The longer he was here, the longer he held out, the more likely it would be that they’d make a proper mistake; and maybe he could use that mistake to his advantage.

Or maybe he was just prolonging the agony.

~~~

Scott had heard nothing from the kidnappers since the photo and poem had been sent nearly a week ago. He tried really hard not to think of what that might mean. The taunting nature of the haiku made him think that they wouldn’t kill Stiles without bragging about it and letting them know; but he was still so worried he could barely think straight.

The other thought that kept playing on his mind was that he knew what Stiles was like. Scott knew that if these creatures were keeping Stiles it had to be about more than a sacrifice. Stiles’ board had been wiped clean and all traces of research had been removed from his room when they’d found it. It wasn’t until several days later that Scott had thought about what that might mean. The things had clearly taken Stiles for what he might know and Scott knew without a shadow of a doubt that Stiles would rather die than give up information that might hurt people.

Scott had been alternating between total optimism and abject pessimism on a semi-hourly basis since Stiles was taken and he was tired of the seesaw. Now, with new information, he shuddered to think what state Stiles might be in if/when they found him, or whether Stiles would even be alive at all.

The latter thought barely bore thinking about; but then, he really _did_ know what Stiles was like and that skewed the data.

~~~

The photo skittered across the table, coming to a stop in front of Stiles.

Stiles looked at it and immediately looked away. He didn’t know why he was surprised really, it would have shown more luck than he evidently currently had if the envelope to Scott was an isolated incident. It wasn’t as if he could do anything to stop them sending it, railing against it would only give them more leverage, so he tried to act as disinterested as possible. 

He’d obviously not managed to school his features quickly enough, though.

Boss Man laughed, clearly enjoying Stiles’ discomfort.

“We’ve got every ingredient we need now, you know.” The man said conversationally.

“Then why are you still sending them?” Stiles asked, genuinely confused. The leader wasn’t one to volunteer information and he didn’t understand why he was doing so now.

The man across from him grinned. “Why do _you_ think?”

Stiles was suddenly very tired and with that tiredness came a lack of self-preservation he hadn’t shown for a while. “I don’t know, man. Maybe you just need a penpal?”

He knew it was the wrong response even before he felt the seemingly ever-present pain generator standing behind him, move. 

Stiles had a mere moment’s notice to steel himself for whatever new agony he was about to endure.

When nothing happened, he relaxed slightly and that was the point when a searing pain ran across his shoulder blades, setting his skin on fire. The pain was intense, not the same as the sharp pain of the knife, yet it was somehow worse. The fact he was now starting to compare torture methods and types of pain was almost enough to send him into paroxysms of giggles and he knew he must be starting to lose it. Just how much could someone endure before they lost their mind? He thought he knew what torture was, thought the psychological tricks of the Nogitsune were the worst thing he could ever endure; but this was something else entirely.

“He asked you a question.” The man behind him stated. 

Stiles had given up on calling him ‘Sir Punch-A-Lot’ at some point, though he didn’t know when. Somehow calling his torturer a ridiculous moniker didn’t seem to make much sense and he’d yet to come up with anything else.

Stiles looked up, through a haze of tears, tears he furiously blinked away. “Why are you still sending them?”

Boss Man nodded.

Stiles actually thought it over for a moment. 

It was only when an envelope was spun across the table, stopping almost perfectly next to the photo that Stiles started to work it out. Malia’s address stood out in the same block handwriting as the last letter, the perfect penmanship seeming to mock him somehow.

“You’re sending them because of me.”

The older man nodded, gesturing for Stiles to continue.

“You’re sending them because I’m not talking.”

The man made the same gesture.

Stiles swallowed, the realisation dawning on him and making him feel sick to his stomach.

“You’re sending them because it’ll hurt them.”

“And?”

Stiles paused for a second, working out if there was a way to not make the admission. He heard a shifting behind him and that was enough impetus to make his mind up. Hating himself, he finished the sentence.

“And that’ll hurt me.”

“Give this man a prize.” Boss Man crowed, mock clapping.

Stiles attempted to blink back the tears which had pooled again in his eyes but he wasn’t totally successful. 

A single solitary tear escaped down his cheek, damning him.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has been so long in coming. I always like to be a 'chapter in hand' with the wonderful [inderlander](http://inderlander.tumblr.com) and real life has been so busy of late.
> 
> Anyway, here we are. I whumped Stiles quite a lot in this one. #sorrynotsorry

Stiles bumped along in the back of the wretched van going to, he assumed, another carbon-copied warehouse (and just how many of those did they have anyway?). He didn’t hide his tears this time, didn’t have the energy to wipe them away (although he could, his hands being tied in front for a change); he let them fall unchecked because The Pack had been _so close_. A few seconds here and there and he’d be sitting on his couch forcing Scott to finally watch Star Wars and pretending not to notice the glisten in his father’s eyes about having him back.

As it turned out, Stiles watched the scene unfold in front of him from the back of his kidnapper's van. It was played out in glorious technicolour and with the benefit of sound this time.

“Seeing as we were there for _so long_ this time before your friends found you, we had time to rig for sound,” Stiles’ torturer crowed gleefully.

Stiles didn’t respond. There wasn’t anything to say. 

The shatter of the mug Scott threw at the floor sounded tinny on the tablet thrust in front of Stiles’ face; but the fury with which Scott threw it was evident.

“The coffee’s still warm!” Scott shouted, kicking over standing boards and almost ripping the table to pieces.

Stiles daren’t look at any of his kidnappers, assuming that they would be looking for a reaction from him. The tears streaking down his face were enough.

“He was right fucking HERE!” Scott swore. Somehow it was worse when Scott used expletives. They seemed to have more weight when he used them because he hardly ever did.

Lydia was pragmatic as ever and it made Stiles smile a little through his tears.

“But we _were_ close Scott. We managed to find him. We’ll find him again.”

“Turn it off,” Stiles said, looking up from the screen and straight at Boss Man.

“No,” the man replied, turning up the sound as he did so.

Stiles looked away and Closet Guy ( _Austin_ his brain reminded him) grabbed his chin and forced it towards the screen again.

Stiles wanted to close his eyes but it didn’t seem worth it. He’d be punished if he did. This latest van ride was one of the few times he hadn’t been in too much pain recently and he wasn't in a hurry to change that. 

The rest of the journey passed in silence apart from the noise from the screen.

Stiles let his tears run freely. The kidnappers already knew that his friends were his weakness, there seemed no reason to hide his emotions. He wished it didn’t make him seem so weak though .

~~~

The pack seemed to collapse onto the floor near the tables, moving back to the main room for something to do more than anything else. 

The warehouse was much the same as the last one, totally devoid of any clues apart from the absence of any information. That in itself was a clue; it proved that the people they pursued really didn’t want anyone knowing what they were doing. It didn’t feel like much of a clue to Stiles’ friends though; it felt like another failure, despite what they were all saying to try to support Scott. Scott was falling apart. If they didn’t find Stiles soon, it didn’t matter what the next Supernatural threat was, their Alpha wasn’t going to be much of a leader. Much as it pained him to admit, Scott had realised this independently of his pack.

Malia refused to stop looking even after everyone else had moved back to the big room they had entered into. She had steeled herself to open all the doors, pausing before each one as images of a broken or dead Stiles flashed before her eyes. She didn’t know whether she was relieved or not that she didn’t find him. It had been a while since she’d seen a photo of Stiles and she didn’t know what state he would be in now.

One such room had a piece of paper left casually on the table, she leaned over to read it, hoping it would give her some insight as to where Stiles was. As she read, her claws immediately dropped and she heard herself involuntarily snarl.

_Better luck next time._

Her first instinct was to rip the piece of paper into many pieces; but she picked it up instead, moving slowly back to the pack.

She thrust the piece of paper under their noses and then promptly sat down and refused to make eye contact with any of them. This whole situation was starting to wear on all of them and she didn’t trust herself to speak; didn’t know whether she would start ranting and blaming someone if she did.

~~~

When the van stopped, Stiles looked up and spoke to the van at large, not sure who he was directing his question towards. 

“What did the letter say?”

The mercenaries just laughed until the door of the van was opened by Bed Monster.

“All change please, all change. This is the terminus.”

“Oh geez, Carter, shut up.”

“Forgot your coffee this morning?”

“Bite me.”

Stiles wasn’t so despondent that he didn’t file away the knowledge that Bed Monster was called ‘Carter’. He didn’t know what he was going to do with the information, but it felt like a victory nevertheless.

~~~

“What are we going to tell Stiles’ dad?” Kira asked quietly, looking around at everyone.

“The truth, I guess.” Scott sighed.

The pack fell into silence after that, no-one wanted to be there for that conversation. Sheriff Stilinski was visibly and rapidly going downhill, as if Stiles was the tether that kept him stable and without him life was slowly ebbing away.

“I’ll do it,” Scott said.

No-one jumped to contradict him.

~~~

The men threw Stiles into a carbon copy of the last room he’d been left in. They didn’t even tie him this time and for some reason that fact made his body flood with cold. His captors not being as stringent with their safety precautions could be seen as a good thing, but Stiles had gotten to know these guys; he was starting to understand how they operated. They had thrown him in here without restraints because they thought they’d broken him and they didn’t need them anymore. Even if they hadn’t, they knew that Stiles wouldn’t be able to get out of the room and, if he did, he certainly wouldn’t be able to get past them and out of the door.

No, this was most definitely a threat.

Stiles sat in the chair and lent his arms against the table, staring at the door. He tried very hard to squash the voice in the back of his head which asked him whether he _had_ been broken.

He didn’t quite succeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inderlander's notes for this chapter were _hilarious_. "Jerk" "Jerk #2" and finally "bastards" when she got to the part with the note.
> 
> I laughed for longer than I care to admit.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm breaking my own rule here of keeping a chapter in hand with my beta, however I know some people are eagerly anticipating this chapter, so I'm reluctantly posting it anyway.
> 
> Real life is mental at the moment (for both myself and [inderlander](http://inderlander.tumblr.com)) so I'm not sure when Chapter 12 will be up; but rest assured we are still loving and excited about this story, so it's not disappearing any time soon.

Sir Punch-A-Lot threw Stiles into the chair in the main warehouse space. The chair tipped slightly but righted itself when Stiles compensated.

Stiles glared a bit at Boss Man but couldn't really do it very well. His resolve was wavering and they all knew it. It was probably more a formality than anything else.

"It's getting closer to the full moon, Mr. Stilinski. Our time; my patience and your unmarred skin are running out ." Boss Man said with very little emotion.  
As if bidden by his boss’ words, Sir Punch-A-Lot (and it was frustrating Stiles no end that he knew Carter and Austin's names; but didn't know the name of the guy who was on his list of 'worst people on the planet').

Stiles was debating whether the guy behind him or Peter Hale was worst. Peter Hale had obviously screwed up _generally_ ; but Sir Punch-A-Lot had hurt him _specifically_. He supposed it had to be Peter then, he'd hurt more people. Stiles wished he'd be alive long enough to tell Scott who'd won. They'd been adding to the list for as long as he could remember. Mrs. Rosenburg had been top of the list for ages; but then Mr. Talbot had given them homework during Spring Break and that was a grand injustice when you were nine.

Stiles' wandering thoughts were stopped quite suddenly when his torturer dragged a knife down the whorl of his left ear. Stiles hissed, more out of surprise than pain. The man was getting creative. Stiles hated himself a little for being mildly impressed.

Stiles was honestly confused with Boss Man's statement.

"But, you know you're not going to be able to find the Nemeton yet anyway. You might have to wait until the next full moon."

Sir Punch-A-Lot moved infinitesimally and Stiles took in a deep breath.

"What? You _know_ you're not going to be able to find it," Stiles repeated. "You're not ready, not until you've sorted out your translation problem."

There was a silence. It stretched for so long that Stiles started to tense, expecting a hit that never came.

"What did you just say?" Boss Man said very slowly.

It took Stiles mere moments to realise he’d given them information that they hadn’t known. He’d only just seen the error himself and it was so obvious he’d assumed that they already knew. He thought it had taken him so long to work it out because he wasn’t on top form. Being able to see both the pack’s research and the kidnapper’s research meant ideas were slotting into place. He’d even worked out what it was the idiots were trying to do and that fact alone helped him to sleep at night. Knowing these guys were going to blow themselves up regardless of what happened to him gave him some comfort.

“Er…” Stiles started, unsure what his next word was going to be.

Boss Man nodded.

Sir Punch-A-Lot, true to his moniker, walked around in front of Stiles and punched him directly in the ribs.

Stiles felt something crack; and as his breath left him in a rush his right shoulder throbbed, reminding him of where he had been stabbed.

“ _What_. Translation. Problem?” Boss Man asked, accentuating every word.

Stiles looked back, not trusting himself to say anything more; not sure if he’d even have the breath to say anything anyway.

“I think Mr. Stilinski has out-lived his usefulness.” Boss Man said conversationally to Sir Punch-A-Lot over Stiles’ head.

Stiles’ entire body flooded with cold. This was it. They were going to kill him. He was surprised to find that he wasn’t as panicked as he thought he’d be. It wasn’t even that death seemed to be a welcome relief, though he knew it would wreck his father. It was more that he was proud of himself for not breaking, proud that 

his death would mean something.

“That red-head looked pretty smart…and _breakable_.” The man lent on the last word, watching Stiles as he did so.

Stiles lunged out of the chair, banging his hips on the table. He had nowhere to go; but he still wanted to rip this guy apart with his bare hands. If he could somehow get his hands _free_ of course.

“Going somewhere, Mr. Stilinski?”

“You hurt her and I swear to God…”

“What? What are _you_ going to do to _me_?” The man said, laughing with derision.

Stiles sank back into his chair.

Sir Punch-A-Lot patted him on the back of the head condescendingly.

“That’s what I thought,” Boss Man said, “now, about this translation issue?”

~~~

Scott had mostly calmed down when he went to see his second father.

The Stilinski house was much worse than it had been the last time he’d been here. Takeout cartons littered surfaces in both the kitchen and living room and research was strewn across the entire dining table, showing maps and reports. Scott leaned over to look at one that his sleeping parent had scrunched in his hand. It showed a list of vehicle registrations that had passed through a traffic camera.

They were clutching at straws and Scott knew it.

Scott nudged Stiles’ father a little to wake him.

The look of hope on the man’s face when he focused on Scott was heartbreaking; and the subsequent look of despair that crossed the older man’s face when Scott shook his head minutely was awful.

“We’ll keep…” Scott said.

“Yeah.” Sheriff Stilinski replied, cutting off his second son’s words and waving him away.

Scott left reluctantly.

The Sheriff vaguely wondered at what point they’d give up. 

They were already way past the time the police would ordinarily give to the case. Obviously cases like this never _actually_ closed; but after three weeks they were shifted to the bottom of the pile as more ‘solvable’ cases piled in. He knew this but he also knew that he’d never stop looking for his son, not when there was still hope. Horrible pictures and taunting messages from the bastards who had taken his son were a cause of high blood pressure and homicidal thoughts; but they were also proof that Stiles was alive.

That was all he needed to know.

~~~

Stiles had told his kidnappers everything, helping them to translate the words of the rite. It was basically a recipe, so Stiles didn’t think he was giving them too much, they’d almost had it down anyway and they’d have noticed it sooner or later. Or that’s what he’d told himself. 

He wasn’t going to tell them the location of the Nemeton, _couldn’t_ even if he had wanted to, and that was what they really needed to know for this to work. He tried not to think about what would happen if these guys took any of the rest of the pack. He knew he’d waver if his friends were hurt, wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold out; but he also knew that if they were together they would bolster each other. Maybe they could all be strong enough to keep these guys off the streets, even if it meant the pack itself was no longer standing.

“You’ve been so helpful to us today, Mr. Stilinski. I wonder whether you could give us just one more piece of information?” Boss Man simpered; but then paused.  
Stiles wondered whether it was for dramatic effect and that thought almost made him giggle, something he didn’t think would be sensible at this juncture.

“Where is the Nemeton?”

“Never heard of it.” Stiles said, repeating words he’d said however many weeks it had been now.

Boss Man pursed his lips for a moment and then sighed. “Have it your way.”

Stiles didn’t even hear Sir Punch-A-Lot move before the burning pain began again across his back. It didn’t let up and Stiles found that despite his intention, he ended up screaming after a few minutes.

Blessedly, after a further minute he passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This fic is on hiatus**.
> 
> I really hope I can come back to this fic. I really hope that Teen Wolf hasn't been ruined forever. I really hope my mental health improves enough that I'm no longer triggered by even any mention of this show. Right now though, there is no way I can even contemplate writing this.
> 
>  
> 
> Your patience and compassion is appreciated.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has supported me through this crazy time I've been having. It's been a long old road; but I think I'm back.
> 
> I'm no longer getting any panic when I see Teen Wolf related things; and I've even been watcing Season 6, although it's slow going. Your support meant more to me than you'll know. 
> 
> Now, Hurt!Stiles, anyone?

Stiles was surprised that he woke up in ‘his’ room and had no memory at all of getting there.

His back felt like it was on fire and no matter how he twisted he couldn’t see enough to work out why. Somehow not being able to understand his injury made it hurt worse.

He lent his head against the wall in the corner he had presumably been thrown into; and closed his eyes. 

After a moment, he started to cry.

He knew that Scott and his dad would be looking for him, knew that they wouldn’t give up; but it had been so long now that Stiles knew the trail must be cold. The men who had taken him seemed to always be one step ahead; and that very fact made Stiles doubt whether the two people who meant most to him in his life would succeed in their task.

~~~

“It feels like we’re losing.” Scott said, slumping to the floor in his room once again.

Lydia said “We’ve had some set-backs.” At the same time Malia said “We are.”

Four pairs of eyes looked at the were-coyote.

“What? We are! It’s been weeks, this creature has been one step ahead this entire time and we are just us. I’m not saying 'stop looking' I’m just saying, 'you’re not wrong.'”

Everyone turned to look at Scott after that pronouncement.

“Okay,” Scott started, feigning positivity and only just stopping himself from sighing. “Okay, we just need to come up with another plan.”

 _A better plan_. A small voice in the back of his head scoffed. 

~~~

“It was a good threat; but we don’t have time to kidnap someone else.” Austin said.

It was a rare ‘smart’ comment from the larger man. Perhaps that was why there was a pause before anyone answered.

“Yeah, I know.” His superior sighed, the annoyance in his voice palpable. It was surprising because normally he acted aloof around his subordinates. Now though, he couldn't disguise his fatigue.

“We’re just going to have to up our game.” Morgan said quietly, the hint of a question in his statement.

His boss nodded slowly, seeming to come to a decision in his head. “Free rein, Morgan.”

“Sir?” Morgan asked, making sure he had heard correctly.

“Free rein.” The man repeated firmly.

Morgan nodded his assent and turned away to get his supplies. When he was out of sight of his colleagues, he smiled. He so rarely got to work unfettered. 

This was going to be fun.

~~~

Stiles wasn't sure how much more he could take; and he couldn't remember how many times he'd had that thought either. It seemed like every other thought was the same: _when would he give up?_ He knew the human body could only take so much; and he knew his body was getting to that point. He cursed his thirst for knowledge, his love of police work, that he knew exactly how a human body functioned and what its limits were. He wanted it to end; and right now he couldn't decide which 'end' would be preferable. 

That thought alone scared him more than anything else.

“Come on Mr. Stilinski. Not long now. You must know we'll find out soon anyway. You might as well give it up.”

“If you're going to 'find out soon anyway', why do you need me to tell you?” Stiles asked, once more cursing himself for his smart alec remark. Apparently there was still some fight in him left. _Bugger_.

He felt rather than saw the figure shift next to him, wondered what type of pain he was going to experience this time, hoped it was going to be a sharp pain. And how fucked up was it that he had a 'favourite' type of pain these days?

The tears started falling down his face even before Morgan gleefully started his work as Boss Man left the area. Stiles really hated this guy.

“Aww,” Morgan said mockingly, “do you need your mommy?”

Stiles raised his head, too tired to work out whether he had been crying before the mention of his mother, or because of the brief, biting pain (which assumed was acid being dripped onto his now ruined shoulder). Absently, he wondered whether he would ever be able to move that arm properly again.

He tried to stay awake as long as he could, tried to glean more information from the boards still put up around him; but they were blurry. To be honest, he'd been staring at them so long by this point that he'd be surprised if anything jumped out at him.

The pain stopped. Or rather the pain didn't get any worse. The small, biting, new pains stopped.

Morgan put down his bottle, the pipette back in the lid; and smiled a predatory smile at him. Stiles suppressed a shudder; but couldn't help the hint of pride that flared inside him, knowing he'd guessed correctly what was hurting him.

“Ready to talk now, Mr. Stilinski?” Boss Man asked, walking in like he was on cue. 

The entrance made Stiles laugh, then wince. It frustrated Stiles no end that he still didn't know Boss Man's real name. Somehow that made him more sinister; but Stiles couldn't work out why. He wasn't punished for the laugh either, which confused him.

“Where's the Nemeton?”

“No idea.” Stiles answered immediately. It wasn't even a lie, he genuinely didn't know where it was; but they still thought he was holding out on them.

There was a nod. A punch. Another cracked rib.

“Where is it?”

“Not sure.”

Another nod. Another punch. Another sharp pain along his arm.

Stiles gasped. Immediately he mentally kicked himself, he'd shown another weakness and that almost hurt worse than the torture he'd just endured. Almost.

Boss Man smiled; and moved closer to where Stiles sat.

“Let's try that again.”

Stiles gulped and wished his body would stop betraying him. He wasn't scared. He couldn't let this guy see that he was scared. He could deal with this. He wanted to show an aura of indifference. 

Except he was scared; and everyone knew it.

~~~

"THIS ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH!” The Sheriff shouted, sweeping a load of papers off his desk and smashing a mug on the ground as he did so.

Scott stood his ground, even though this was the scariest sight he'd ever seen. He'd faced down wolves, witches and a 1,000 year old demon; but this was worse. This was his surrogate father losing all hope and it made his heart break.

“I know.” Scott said quietly, looking at the ground.

That small admission was enough to break John's anger.

“Oh Scott, I didn't...”

“No, it's okay.”

“It's not.”

“No really, it's...”

John crossed the room and took Scott up into a giant hug, causing the Alpha to huff out a breath. John Stilinski had many failings; but strength wasn't one of them.

“It's not your fault, Scott. I'm sorry.”

Scott accepted the apology outwardly; but still blamed himself inside. It _was_ his fault. For all his many powers, he couldn't find his best friend, hadn't stopped the kidnapping in the first place. This whole thing was on him; and he couldn't bear the thought of Stiles dying because of him. Couldn't bear the thought of Stiles dying full stop.

But he was losing hope. They all were.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited about this fic, it's really coming in to land now and I can't wait to share it with you guys. Thank you so much for reading!

Stiles came back to consciousness slowly and immediately knew that he was running out of time.

If he was honest with himself, he'd known that for a while; but he couldn't shake the feeling that this whole thing would be over soon. He wished that he could have seen his dad one last time, thinks he'd even take a video of him falling to pieces at this point. Just anything to see his face one last time.

After a few more moments, he realised that he was wet. He must have been woken up by someone throwing water over him. As if bidden by that thought, another bucket of water was thrown over him and he spluttered, getting some of it in his mouth.

“Wrong time of year for a wet T-shirt contest isn't it?”

The sharp pain in his shoulder was almost worth it. Almost.

“End of the line, Mr. Stilinski.” Boss Man said, coming into view.

Stiles is absolutely convinced that he does this on purpose. Maybe he was a failed actor, it would certainly explain all the drama. He stopped himself just before he rolled his eyes. His shoulder hurt and he didn't want anything else prodded into it.

“Where's the Nemeton?”

Stiles didn't say anything, didn't know what he _could_ say. He genuinely didn't know where it was. Couldn't tell them even if he wanted to.

He heard the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking behind him and his blood ran cold. This was it. He was going to die in a shitty warehouse God knew where and they might not ever find him. That thought alone made his eyes swim with tears; but he was determined not to let them fall.

Morgan walked round in front of him slowly; and Stiles closed his eyes, he didn't want this bastard to be the last thing he saw.

“Last chance, Mr. Stilinski.”

“If you think I know, killing me seems particularly stupid.” Stiles quipped.

“Yes, it does.” Boss Man said.

That made Stiles open his eyes again then, because he'd clearly read this situation wrong.

Without any further ado, Morgan's finger tightened on the trigger and then Stiles was screaming, struggling against his bonds and not getting anywhere. The pain in his knee was so intense he's surprised he hasn't passed out yet; but apparently now is the time that his body has decided to keep him conscious.

“Where is it?” Boss Man asked, coming closer.

Stiles could barely focus on him, tears had started falling down his face unbidden. The pain in his knee so excruciating he could barely think straight.

“I. Don't. Know.” Stiles bit out, panting in between the words, trying to rein in his body's reactions.

Morgan walked closer and Stiles' eyes looked to him again.

“You've got two knees, you know.” He smirked.

Stiles whimpered then. He didn't mean to and he was furious with his body for betraying him.

Morgan just smiled.

“So?” Boss Man prompted.

“I don't know, okay?” Stiles said quietly. “I don't know. You've got your magical mystery recipe. That's all I knew! I swear!”

Boss Man backed off slightly.

“What do you think, Morgan?” He asked conversationally.

“I think he's holding out on us.” 

“So do I.”

~~~

The pack sat in Lydia's house, in her immaculate living room, on the floor. 

They didn't talk. 

What more was there to say?

~~~

“I think I might have something.” Parrish said, starting the sentence before he even got into the Sheriff's office.

The look of naked hope that his boss gave him broke Parrish's heart.

“One of the warehouses belonged to a shell company and the third one had linked to the same one. We might be able to track it backwards and see if they own any other properties.”

“Do it.” John answered quickly, sounding a little stern. Softening his voice slightly, he added. “Please hurry.”

~~~

Stiles' whole body was in pain. He could no longer feel specific areas, even when Morgan was working on them. He felt hot and cold at the same time and he wondered whether he had an infection, whether he was going to die from something seemingly innocuous instead of all of the torture.

The thing that kept screwing with him was that after a bout of torture, they always fixed him up, waited for him to catch his breath and then started again. 

He had no concept of time, no concept of anything really. All he could feel was pain. At least that reminded him he was still alive; and if he was still alive, there was still a slim hope that he'd be rescued. He just hoped Scott would hurry.

~~~

Scott refused to hope that they'd find Stiles. Of course he _wanted_ to; but he couldn't hope. Couldn't go through that again. He just couldn't.

~~~

“I don't know. I swear I don't know.” Stiles whispered, blood dripping onto the floor from cuts all up and down his arms and chest. 

“The thing is, Mr. Stilinski.” Boss Man simpered. “We just don't believe you.”

Morgan prodded the bandage on Stiles' knee where the bullet had entered, reminding him of the pain and reminding him of the fact he had two legs.

“I don't know! Do you think I'd have gone through all of this if I knew where it was?” Stiles said, voice stronger with his anger, even despite the pain.

“Do you want your dad to see you like this? Do you want his last memory of you to be this?” Boss man asked, shoving a picture under Stiles' nose.

“No. Please.” He begged. The picture showed him tied to this very chair, his body more red than anything else, the bandage around his knee starting to redden.

Boss Man showed Stiles the envelope, the Sheriff station's address on it. Then he showed Stiles the note.

_Roses are Red_  
_Violets are Blue_  
_Your Son is going to die_  
_And you all will too._


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might be on a writing streak. #sorrynotsorry

“I don't know!” Stiles said for maybe the hundredth time. “I don't know! The last time we found it we had to bloody _die_!”

The pain stopped. Or at least any new pain stopped, the underlying pain that he'd been feeling for God knew how long hadn't ceased.

“What did you say?”

Stiles actually couldn't remember. He was just shouting things at this point.

“I...” Stiles started, preparing to ad lib if he needed to.

“So, there _is_ a way to find it?”

Stiles paled, wondering what he'd let slip.

All it needed was an infinitesimal movement behind him; and Stiles was explaining everything. He told them about the ritual, told them how they'd found it; but tried to get across that it wasn't something he could replicate, wasn't something he actually _knew_.

“You're going to figure this out, Mr. Stilinski.” Boss man told him, leaning across to tap on the table. “You're going to figure this out or I'm going to find every single person you love and kill them one by one right there.” He pointed to a spot on the floor, feet away from Stiles. “And you're going to watch.”

Morgan took a fist full of Stiles' hair and pulled his head backwards. 

Stiles gasped, more out of surprise than any pain.

Morgan lent down and whispered in Stiles' ear. “And their deaths won't be quick.”

Stiles thought that was it, that the pain was going to start again; but he was surprised to hear Boss Man tell Austin (who had apparently appeared without Stiles noticing again) to clean him up.

They helped him in to 'his' room and laid him on the bed. Austin immediately going about his first aid business.

At least they didn't have to worry about him running anymore, he thought darkly.

~~~

“I swear I don't know! We were in ice water for 16 fucking hours the last time we found it...”

_Cut._

“Look it's not that simple! I have a darkness inside me or something; but I can't just...”

_Punch._

“You're not getting it! It's a magic tree it's not something you can look up on Google...”

_Punch._

Stiles definitely felt a rib crack. He has no idea how many that is now; but he's amazed he's still even breathing at this point.

“Just tell us! Tell us where it is!”

_Cut._

Stiles can't work out whether he wants them to hit an artery or not.

“I don't know!”

A gun cocks, and before Stiles looks up he knows where it's going to be pointing.

Morgan stood in front of him, gun pointed at the untouched knee. 

Stiles wanted to make a quip about Morgan being predictable; but he didn't think he had it in him.

Stiles doesn't wish it often; but right now he wishes he'd accepted the bite from Peter. If he was a werewolf he'd be able to deal with this pain better. If he was a wolf, maybe he wouldn't be the weak link in the pack. Maybe all this wouldn't have happened.

“I don't know, man. I swear I don't know.” Stiles is sobbing now, not even caring that they can see him cry. Can't they see that they've broken him? Do they really think he's holding things back?

~~~

“We've got two hits on warehouses.”

They were all crowded in Sheriff Stilinski's office, the space quite cramped, all faces looking at Parrish. Scott stood up immediately, ready to get Stiles back, all previous loss of hope gone. 

The Sheriff looked out on a sea of people who loved Stiles like he did; and he felt moved almost to tears. They were going to get his son back. There was no alternative to consider.

“Sit down, Scott. We have to do this carefully.”

“We have to...time is not...”

His surrogate father put a hand on his arm. “I know, Scott. I feel it too; but we have to do this methodically.”

Scott sat, reluctantly, he could feel the adrenaline courses through his veins and every tendon and muscle seemed to tense.

The plan they eked out was that the police department would hit one of the warehouses at the same time as the pack hit the other. It would mean they'd have a greater chance at catching these guys; and hopefully it would mean one warehouse couldn't warn the other if they both had people in them.

There were so many things that could go wrong with the plan; but it was the first time they'd even _had_ a plan in such a long time that no-one mentioned them. 

~~~

“You're dying, kid. You must know that.” Boss Man said almost kindly.

“I. do.” Stiles bit out, having difficulty breathing.

“So, just tell us. What do you have to lose?”

Stiles passed out then. The words 'I don't know' echoing in his head.

~~~

“Maybe he really doesn't know.” Austin said into the silence.

“Maybe he really doesn't know.” Morgan mocked. “Give me a break. I'll get him to talk.”

~~~

_Stiles felt like he was floating and he wondered if this was what dying felt like._

__

_In the blackness of his subconscious he was suddenly aware of a light getting stronger. It was like a spotlight in the infinite blackness; and it was shining down on something he knew very well._

____

_The Nemeton lay before him, big and old and with power emanating from it. Stiles floated towards it and then suddenly he could see a thin line going from his chest to the centre ring of the tree. It was the link that Deaton had talked about, the link that they all would carry for the rest of their lives._

_____ _

_Stiles looked closer and he could see the light was dimming on his connection, sputtering and blinking out more often than not. Stiles watched as the tree seemed to diminish in size in time with his link dimming._

______ _ _

_And suddenly Stiles understood. He was marked by the Nemeton; but the Nemeton was also marked by him. If he died, part of it died too. He'd never thought of it like that before._

_______ _ _ _

_The tree seemed to push light from itself up the cord and into Stiles' chest and he felt himself take a breath. It seemed more difficult than normal; but he managed it and tried again._

________ _ _ _ _

_Stiles knew that the Nemeton wanted him to live; and that meant he needed to tell his captors where it was._

_________ _ _ _ _ _

_And then, dropped fully formed into his mind, was it's exact location._

_________ _ _ _ _ _

~~~

_________ _ _ _ _ _

“He's back.”

_________ _ _ _ _ _

Stiles heard the sound of a fist connecting with flesh. He was surprised to find that it wasn't him who was being hit.

_________ _ _ _ _ _

“You nearly killed him!” Boss Man was shouting at Morgan.

_________ _ _ _ _ _

“He needed...” Morgan started; but was stopped by another fist to his face.

_________ _ _ _ _ _

“How about you let me work out what he 'needs'.”

_________ _ _ _ _ _

Boss Man himself walked towards Stiles, producing a knife from somewhere about his person and holding it to Stiles' throat.

_________ _ _ _ _ _

“Last chance.”

_________ _ _ _ _ _

There was a pause which seemed to stretch to infinity.

_________ _ _ _ _ _

“Okay.” Stiles said quietly. “Okay, I'll tell you.”

_________ _ _ _ _ _


End file.
